Old notes accepted till Nov 24; separate queues for senior citizens, divyangs: PM's meeting in 10 points

New Delhi: With banks struggling to cope with rush to get alternative currency, the government has extended use of old defunct Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for paying household utility bills, fuel, taxes and fees and purchases from co-operative stores till November 24. While withdrawing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from the night of November 8-9, the government had allowed use of the old currency at government hospitals, railway ticketing, public transport, airline ticketing at airports, milk booths, crematoria/burial grounds and petrol pumps for 72 hours. This list was later expanded to include payments for metro rail tickets, highway and road toll, purchase of medicines on doctor prescription from the government and private pharmacies, LPG gas cylinders, railway catering, electricity and water bills and ASI monument entry tickets. As banks struggled to give alternate currency, the deadline was extended by another 72 hours. That deadline was to end at midnight tonight, but has now been extended till November 24, official sources said. Old currency can also be used for purchases at consumer co-operative stores like Kendriya Bhandar with valid ID proof as also for paying court fee. But payments towards utility bills will be restricted to only individuals or households for arrears and/or current bills. No advance payments will be allowed. Amid continuing chaos and growing public anger across the country over limited cash availability following the surprise demonetisation of two higher value currency notes by Modi, the Prime Minister held a review meeting with with senior ministers past midnight on Sunday to review the impact of demonetisation that aims at fighting the menace of black money in the country. Image Courtesy: Twitter After which, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das informed the media that the PM took stock of the availability of cash and RBI has informed that there is enough cash available in the system . The meeting at Prime Minister’s residence was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Power, Coal and Mines Minister Piyush Goyal and top officials of the Finance ministry. Here are the key points discussed at the meeting:

• ATMs are being recalibrated to dispense the new series of Rs 500 & 2000 notes.
• These recalibrated ATMs can dispenese Rs 2,500 at a time. Earlier on Sunday, the government decided to increase the daily withdrawal limit from ATMs to 2000 rupees to 2500 rupees and the amount of withdrawal across the bank counter from Rs 4,000 to Rs 4,500.
• The upper limit for weekly withdrawal from bank account has been raised to Rs 24,000 from Rs 20,000.
• Micro ATMs will be deployed in large number of areas to dispense cash against debit and credit cards.
• There will be separate queues for senior citizens and divyang persons in banks.
• There will be another separate queue solely for those who are visiting the banks only to exchange old series of notes for new notes.
• Current account business entities which have had operational current accounts during last 3 months will be permitted to draw Rs 50,000 at a time.
• The banks have been advised to increase the cash holding limit of the banking correspondents to at least 50,000 rupees.
• In other cases, banks would be encouraged to increase the cash holding limits beyond 50,000 rupees in appropriate cases.
• Banking correspondents will be permitted by banks to draw cash in a single day multiple times.(With inputs from agencies)