Withdraw Rs 2000 from Big Bazaar

NEW DELHI, Nov 22: In a major relief to people inconvenienced due to the demonetisation decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government has announced that Rs 2,000 can now be withdrawn from consumer retail outlets of Big Bazaar, using debit card from November 24.
The withdrawal of Rs 2,000 from Big Bazaar outlets would reduce the burden on people, who are currently lining up outside huge queues of banks and ATM counters.
In the past week, Government also instructed petrol pumps to allow customers to withdraw cash using their debit cards. Due to the sudden demonetisation decision of PM Narendra Modi, banks and ATM counters have been lined up with scores of people.
The queues have been escalating in rural and remote parts of the nation, where ATMs and banks are far less as compared to the proportion of people residing in the region.
The decision to allow customers to withdraw Rs 2000 from Big Bazaar could effectively reduce the rush outside banks and ATM counters. The recalibration of ATMs is expected to be completed by end of the month.
Several ATMs which have yet not been reconfigured to eject the new notes, have turned dry. Due to no cash in the ATM counters, combined with escalating queues outside banks, there is an evident cash crunch in some parts of the nation.
In another marginal relief to wedding families, RBI has relaxed one of several conditions for withdrawal of Rs 2.5 lakh from their own accounts by making declaration for payments beyond Rs 10,000 only.
Earlier, the drawee had to declare all payments he had to make out of the Rs 2.5 lakh withdrawal from the account.
Also, RBI asked banks to ensure adequate funds are provided to rural cooperative banks for disbursal to farmers so that they can have enough valid notes for purchase of seeds, fertiliser and other inputs during the ongoing rabi season.
Parallelly, RBI doubled the limit to Rs 20,000 for semi-close pre-paid instruments with a view to meeting the transactional needs of the public through digital means.
“A detailed list of persons to whom the cash withdrawn is proposed to be paid, together with a declaration from such persons that they do not have a bank account, where the amount proposed to be paid is Rs 10,000 or more. The list should indicate the purpose for which the proposed payments are being made,” RBI said in a notification.
“It is estimated that about Rs 35,000 crore would be required by DCBs (District Co-operative Banks) for sanction and disbursement of crop loans to farmers at the rate of Rs 10,000 crore per week,” an RBI notification said.
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will be utilising its own cash credit limits up to about Rs 23,000 crore to enable the DCBs to disburse the required crop loans to Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) and farmers, it said.
“As many of these loans will be disbursed in cash to facilitate farming related expenses, we advise in this regard that banks with currency chests should ensure adequate cash supply to the DCBs and RRBs,” it said.
The decision comes a day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had a meeting with RBI, NABARD and all bankers and impressed upon them to make available funds to the cooperative sector as it is an important financing mechanism for rural India.
Yesterday, RBI issued detailed operating guidelines for banks for dealing with special dispensation for wedding, a move which was announced by the Government four days ago.
Withdrawals were allowed only from balance available before November 8 decision of the Government to demonetise 500 and 1,000 currency notes and the same can be done only for marriages solemnised on or before December 30.
As people continue to face cash crunch after the scrapping of high value notes, the Government has decided not to levy parking fee at airports for another week, till midnight of November 28.
The waiver, which was initially for a week starting from midnight of November 14, had ended yesterday.
A Civil Aviation Ministry spokesperson today said the parking fee has now been waived till midnight of November 28.
The decision to defer collecting parking charges would be applicable for Airports Authority of India (AAI) as well as privately operated aerodromes.
The extension comes against the backdrop of people continuing to face difficulties in tendering change following the demonetisation of Rs 500/1,000 notes, which was announced on November 8.
While announcing the parking fee waiver on November 14, the Government had said the move was to facilitate the smooth movement of passengers.
There are 75 operational airports including six run under joint ventures.
Meanwhile, Telecom operators today agreed to make mobile short code messages — used mainly for banking services — free till December 31, 2016, in an attempt to promote mobile banking and cashless transactions following the scrapping of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
The development came soon after telecom regulator TRAI cut the charges to 50 paise, down from Rs 1.50.
This means that after December 31, these messages used for availing of mobile banking services such as checking balance, withdrawals, deposits and peer-to-peer-transfer can be charged at a maximum of 50 paise.
The development comes at a time when the Government is aggressively pushing consumers to digital payment and cashless transactions to tide over the ongoing liquid cash crunch.
The move is expected to nudge low-end feature phone users — forming a significant chunk of the Indian market – towards mobile based banking and payment services.
“At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD charge,” Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a tweet.
To facilitate use of electronic banking facility and reduce difficulty for the common man, telecom operators have decided to waive charges for mobile banking services till December 31, 2016, the minister pointed out.
“This move will help people with feature phones to access electronic banking facility without incurring any additional cost till December 31, 2016,” he said.
Airtel and Vodafone India said the move would accelerate India’s progress into a less-cash economy and urged customers to avail of the mobile banking services.
While smartphones users typically avail banking services through apps, short code message or USSD is prevalent among consumers with feature phones who do not have Internet connectivity for basic banking services.
However, adoption of USSD for mobile based banking transactions has not taken off as expected, given the steep rates.
“At present in India, as much as 65 per cent of the market is feature phones, which is a significant number… The reduction in tariff will encourage digital financial transactions,” TRAI Chairman R S Sharma said.
Trai, which had issued a consultation paper on USSD in August this year, has also increased the number of dialogues that can be initiated in each session to 8 from 5, to pack in more enquiries into one short code message session.
Sharma said TRAI has also favoured using these mobile short codes for services like e-commerce to pay merchant/sellers as and when the framework and platform for the same are developed.
“We are saying these should not be limited to bank accounts, so as and when infrastructure and platforms develop, it can be used for payment transactions including merchant payments or paying for services delivered,” Sharma said. (PTI)

Follow our WhatsApp channel