RANCHI: At a time when customers were queueing up at bank counters to exchange notes old notes, India Post, Jharkhand went from place to place to facilitate exchange of the same.
With over 3,100 post offices across the state, including 446 sub-offices and 13 head offices, Jharkhand circle organised more than 100 camps and exchanged notes worth Rs 39.57 crore.
Post master general Anil Kumar said that the exercise is aimed at extending facilities to the deprived people, especially those who found it difficult to queue up outside banks and ATMs. In addition to the usual counter facility at post offices, special camps were organised in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and Bokaro to provide the doorstep exchange facility to patients in hospitals, girls’ hostels, lepers’ colony and old age homes.
“For Dhanbad and Bokaro, we sent two vehicles each, one of them carried cash and the other had police force with a magistrate,” Kumar said.
Jharkhand circle has 1.26 crore accounts in post offices, out of which around 12 lakhs are non-functional. In the previous financial year, at least 32 lakh new accounts were opened, whereas since demonetisation, close to four lakh accounts have been opened.
“We are yet to consolidate the figures the new accounts since November 8 but there has been a noticeable increase in the rural pockets,” Kumar said.
Post offices managed the cash crunch in rural parts of the state efficiently. “Out of the net cash offered for exchange, around 85% of the volume was sent to rural parts of the state,” Kumar said.
With more than 3,100 post offices, things are made easier at the panchayat level as well. At present, Jharkhand circle has over 4,000 postmen who have also worked as facilitators for money exchange.
However, one of the hurdles that the postal department faced was difficulty in getting the old notes deposited in RBI chests.
“We do not have sufficient security to set up in the rural parts and hence the money has to be immediately transferred and deposited. Owing to space crunch with the RBI, it was a challenge keeping the old currencies in safe custody and depositing them with the chests as and when space was available,” Kumar said.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
Be First to Comment