ATMs go dry in northeastern states
Agartala/Kohima/Itanagar, May 5: The cash drought in most of the ATMs of the northeastern states has caused a lot of inconvenience for the people in the past few days.
Senior bank officials said that the delay in supplying of remittances by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in Guwahati caused the note crisis in most of the ATMs.
"We should put fresh notes in the ATMs to run the apparatus smoothly. Currently, the bank has old notes and we have asked the RBI in Guwahati to supply fresh notes of different denominations urgently," State Bank of India (SBI) Regional Manager Dipak Chowdhury told IANS.
He said, "We expect that the situation would be normalised by mid next week. This is a temporary phenomenon."
Reports of cash scarcities in the ATMs in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Mizoram in the first week of the month have left the public in a state of anguish.
An SBI official in Itanagar said that the bank had to make an internal arrangement of cash from rural branches to urban branches to address the cash deficit.
Dimapur SBI Assistant General Manager Debjyoti Dutta said that the short supply of notes from the RBI aggravated the situation and hardships to the people.
"RBI would be disbursing the cash for Nagaland soon and ATMs would likely be refilled immediately. However, at the bank branches, there was still cash-at-hand to manage everyday transactions," Dutta said.
A bank official in Imphal said that the shortage was also due to the "overdraw" of cash out of ATMs.
An official of the United Bank of India (UBI) said that the ongoing problem is also due to RBI's introduction of rationing system in supplying cash to commercial banks.
"The RBI has been distributing cash to commercial banks in northeast India on a pro-rata basis that means disbursal of cash in proportion of total number of bank account holders of a state and that of number of bank branches in the region," the official added.
As the bank officials publicly clarified about the cash crisis in ATMs, various rumours also forced people to rush in ATMs and banks to withdraw money.
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Modified scheme to provide cashless treatment for road accident victims nationwide: Nitin Gadkari
New Delhi, Jan 8: The government will come up with a modified scheme by March to provide cashless treatment for road accident victims nationwide, under which they will be entitled to a maximum amount of Rs 1.5 lakh per accident per person, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.
According to Gadkari, the scheme will be applicable to all road accidents caused by the use of motor vehicles on any category of road.
The National Health Authority (NHA) shall be the implementing agency for the programme, in coordination with police, hospitals and State Health Agency etc.
The programme will be implemented through an IT platform, combining the functionalities of the e-Detailed Accident Report (eDAR) application of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Transaction Management System of NHA.
"The broad contours of the pilot programme are -- victims entitled to cashless treatment up to a maximum of Rs 1.5 lakh per accident per person for a maximum period of 7 days from date of the accident," Gadkari said while addressing a press conference.
The government will come up with a modified scheme by March this year.
On March 14, 2024, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) had launched a pilot programme to provide cashless treatment to road accident victims.
The pilot programme -- initiated in Chandigarh -- was aimed at establishing an ecosystem for providing timely medical care to the victims of road accidents, including during the golden hour.
The pilot project was later expanded to six states.
The road transport and highways minister also said the government is studying labour laws to frame a policy for fixing working hours for commercial drivers, on the lines of pilots, as driver fatigue is resulting in fatal road crashes, Gadkari said, adding that India is facing a shortage of 22 lakh drivers.
MoRTH organised a two-day workshop on January 6, and 7, 2025 to holistically deliberate issues, solutions and next steps to be taken to help drive transformation in India's road transport sector.
During the two-day workshop, accelerating implementation of Vehicle Scrapping Policy, pan-India adoption of PUCC 2.0, timelines for introduction of BS-VII norms were discussed, along with expected reduction in pollution with the norms.
Gadkari also launched the scheme for pan-India setup of Driver Training Institutes (DTI) which provides incentives for setting up DTIs and additional incentives for integrated infrastructure of ATSs and DTIs.
The minister stressed on the introduction of specific regulations and guidelines for improving E-Rickshaw safety, given the proliferation of e-rickshaws across the country.
Gadkari said deliberations were done for introduction of Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) for trucks and strict enforcement of retro reflective tape for transport vehicle safety.
Implementation of monitoring centers & vehicle location tracking devices (VLTD) for safety of women and children were also discussed.
The meeting also discussed the launch and integration of all faceless services by the end of March 2025.
"Further, a Committee of Secretaries with representatives from States, MoRTH and NIC will work towards standardization of faceless services modules, document standardization for registration," he added.
