Queues were seen in almost every bank branches till late in the evening in Bihar.
Long queues were witnessed in all bank branches in Bihar on Thursday as people thronged banks to deposit Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes and get lower denomination currencies in return.
The queues were seen in almost every bank branches till late in the evening as panic-stricken citizens sprinted to banks in the morning, the first day after banks reopened following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement banning Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes to fight the menace of black money.
"There was no time to even take lunch during the day as flood of people had descended at the branch," said S K Shrivastava, Manager, of Bank of India, S K Nagar branch.
An estimated Rs 1.03 crore -- 5958 pieces of Rs 1000 notes and 8643 pieces of Rs 500 notes -- was deposited by customers today, Shrivastava added.
Similar rush was seen in all other branches of SBI, Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, UCO bank and private banks like ICICI and HDFC.
There are 6,700 bank branches in Bihar. Out of this 4,300 are in public and private sector while rest are regional rural and cooperative banks. The state has around 6,600 ATMs and over 4 crore ATM-cum debit cards.
There were reports of shortage of cash in some branches considering huge rush of customers which was solved.
"There were some minor problems like shortage of cash which was solved without much delay," said Praveen Kumar, Assistant General Manager, RBI Patna, who has been made nodal officer for Patna.
Confusion prevailed initially among the people in exchanging money as many of them did not know about filling up the form with an ID to exchange the notes.
Policemen were deployed outside banks to prevent any untoward incidents.
Reports from districts also showed heavy rush of citizens to banks.
A report from Araria said people gathered at the banks since early in the morning to avail facility at the earliest. Superintendent of Police, Araria, Sudhir Kumar Porika said 250 policemen were deployed at different branches.
Unlike on Wednesday, petrol pumps saw much less people in Patna during the day.