Mysuru: Member of Parliament Pratap Simha said, the banks should expedite the process of seeding Aadhaar numbers of account holders, and conduct orientation programmes for auto drivers, hoteliers and traders to adopt digital transaction of money to conduct business.

Addressing bankers of the district, along with Deputy Commissioner D Randeep, during a meeting at the DC’s office, here, on Monday, Simha said, the banks should also take steps to provide card swiping machines at competitive prices and train people to use mobile wallets.

“There are reports that the officials of some private banks have formed nexus with cash hoarders to exchange old currency notes for new ones. It is unfortunate that most of the cooperative banks are under the control of politicians. There are reports that the number of accounts have abnormally increased in cooperative banks, since demonetisation,” he said.

DC Randeep said, the banks should take steps to open accounts for labourers of the unorganised sector. “The banks should issue mostly RuPay cards. Camps should be organised to educate the people about opening of accounts and also on digital banking. CCTV camera footage should be preserved to study the process of money exchange and deposits,” he said.

Earlier, the bankers explained that cash dispensation had become difficult in both bank branches and in ATMs as there was no sufficient flow from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Pointing out that there was no problem when people were allowed to withdraw lakhs of rupees every day from banks, Simha questioned, why was there such crises in banks and ATMs even though the withdrawal limit is only in a couple of thousands now?

He said, the banks should take steps to open a branch and an ATM in all villages with a population more than 5,000.

Lead Bank manager K N Shivalingaiah told the meeting, “There are 730 ATMs in the district and they are being re-calibrated to hold new notes. As per the earlier calibration, Rs 40 lakh could be loaded in an ATM, now it has reduced to Rs 10 lakh. So, in view of filling the ATMs as per their present capacity, the district needs Rs 73 crore in cash. But, the cash is not sufficient to fill even 50% of the ATMs. Some people are using more than one cards to withdraw money from ATMs, exhausting cash earlier than expected. There are 512 branches of various banks in the district, only second to Belagavi. However, deposits in banks has also gradually decreased.”

To a question if any fake account has been opened since demonetisation, Shivalingaiah said, no fake account has been detected in Mysuru district, but only one such account has been identified in Kollegal taluk of the neighbouring Chamarajanagar district.