Although banks allowed only senior citizens to exchange demonetised notes on November 19, many senior citizens in Noida were not happy with the arrangements. They said that there was no separate queue for them at many banks.
LR Singhal, an elderly citizen who went to SBI bank in Sector 27, said, “If the day was reserved for senior citizens, the bank should have had a separate queue for us. We stood in a queue with people from all age groups.” He added that he had come to the bank at 9.30 am but had to wait for two hours for exchanging cash.
KC Saxena, another elderly citizen who went to Federal Bank in Sector 22, told City Spidey, “I came to the bank thrice for exchanging money but I could not do so because of the huge crowd. Today I was able to exchange the notes.”
When City Spidey spoke to Sundar Singh, the bank manager of Bank of India in Sector 22, he said that he had given strict instructions to the staff to have separate queues for women, senior citizens and the differently abled. “We make sure we follow guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India [RBI]. Today the bank has four counters – one for women, one for exchange, one for deposit and one for withdrawal.”