After Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes, there has been huge ruckus created outside banks and ATMs. In a shocking incident, an ATM machine at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad  dispensed new Rs 500 denomination notes instead of Rs 100 notes.

As soon as the air travelers came to know about that, they lined up at the ATM belonging to Kotak Mahindra Bank. To a surprise, in an hour as much as Rs 8 lakh was withdrawn from the ATM machine.

The authorities made inquiries and immediately informed the bank’s officials about the glitch. At around 9pm, the bank staff rushed to the airport and temporarily shut it down.

An airport security officer said that "a passenger withdrew Rs 2,500 and got one Rs 2,000 denomination note and five Rs 500 denomination notes instead of five Rs 100s."

“He got Rs 4,500 instead of Rs 2,500 with the technical error in the machine. As the news spread over the airport, air travelers lined up at the ATM for withdrawals,” he said.

An official from the bank’s Shamshabad branch said: "it was a mistake by the outsourcing staff of the off-site ATM maintenance agency."

“They mistakenly kept Rs 500 denominations in the Rs 100 slot. We are verifying the matter and shall recover the excess amount withdrawn by customers as per the database after sharing it with the concerned customer’s bank,” the official said.

The ATM maintenance agency denied to take the blame, saying that "the mistake was made by engineers who recalibrated the machine."

“It is not possible to keep currency of higher denominations in the slot allocated to lower denominations. In such cases the machine identifies the mistake and rolls back the currency into the ATM,” an officer said.

Explaining how the money can be recovered, Federation of Bank Employees secretary M.S. Kumar said, “The bank will raise debit with the account of the customer. The bank officials get the ‘General Print’ of transactions from the ATM maintenance agency. Based on the details of the bank customer, they inform other banks in cases where the customer is not from the home bank. They debit the amount from the customer’s account through ‘debit raise’. If the customer’s account is not having any balance, his account will show as minus balance with the debit.”

Airlines Cancel Flights, Passengers stranded at RGIA

BY M. DIVYA SRI