Balipada: At a time when people are reeling from cash crunch across the country, an unusual situation has crept up once again in parts of Ganjam with traders, shopkeepers, hoteliers and bankers refusing to accept Rs 1 coins, following rumours of a ban on these coins.
While Rs 10 coins stopped being accepted in Ganjam district for a year now after rumours of fake coins started doing the round in markets, the fresh problem has left common people in distress.
Despite repeated directives by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), non-acceptance of these coins is also posing a serious problem for daily wagers, traders, shopkeepers and employees in the district.
Even as no exact reason of the sudden non-acceptance of the small coins was known, many attributed the refusal to banks’ reluctance to take deposits in coins. Moreover, rumours did the rounds that the government was soon going to ban Rs 1 coins.
Keeping his name under wraps, a bank manager stated that the RBI had issued directions to accept coins only to pacify angry consumers. “We have not received any official letter from the RBI,” he stated, adding that accepting coin was time consuming and disrupted banking operations. Moreover, the consumers nowadays are not accepting coins due to which we do not have enough space in chests to store the coins and it also takes more time to count, he said.
Similarly, shopkeepers and traders have stopped accepting coins after being turned down by banks. “I am refusing to accept the coins as I have a pile of coins but the bank is not accepting,” a trader said.
On the other hand, consumers of several banks complained of unnecessary deduction of money from their accounts. “The banks are deducting money in small numbers so that the consumers remain unaware,” complained a consumer adding that the bank employees did not give satisfactory answers when questioned.
