kolkata happiness isgetting a short queue at an atm and being able to withdraw your own hard earned moneyfinally firsttimeinonemonththis facebook update on friday by a kolkatan signifies the sort of crisis demonetisation has unleashed on the common people who are keeping aside their important work and queuing up outside atms and banks to withdraw money to meet basic needs it has been exactly one month since we started queueing up outside atms to withdraw money after demonetisation four weeks have not been enough to reduce the demand for currency notes in the system all the claims of digital wallets and cashless economy of the government notwithstanding the advocates of demonetisation the numbers have increasingly declined will point to the disappearing queues outside the atms but those are more due to the absence of cash rather than abundance of it there is still 20 days to go before the deadline of december 30 imposed by prime minister narendra modi when he claimed that the situation will get absolutely normal the government has claimed that situation on the ground has eased toi spoke to people from different walks to know about their experience florence ghoshresident of picnic gardennumber of visits to the atm 20 times time spent in the queue 3540 hours ordeal the senior teacher in a south kolkata school visits the atm almost five days a week we do not keep much money at home we depend on the atms for money for our regular expenses getting my own money has been a nightmare since demonetisation said ghosh every time she goes to the atm ghosh has to wait for almost 2 to 3 hours for her turn there is invariably a queue of 50 to 60 people already waiting to withdraw many times it has happened that the atm ran out of cash just before my turn that was frustrating said ghosh last week florence dropped her daughter to school for her sports and decided to utilise the time to withdraw money from the atm when i reached the atm it was shut and there was already a queue of 60 people outside the branch just before the bank opened another 90 odd people who had reserved their space in the queue and stood in front of me i could enter the branch only at 1pm i rang up my niece at 11am and requested her to pick up my daughter from school said florence adnan rahilresident of park circustotal number of visits to the atm 16 timestotal time spent in the queue 16 hoursordeal the 26yearold heads to the atm after his office gives over around 7pm at least four times a week in the absence of the main accountant it is my responsibility to arrange for cash for sundry expenses i also needed cash for my personal use too said adnan who is the factory manager in an import and export firm for four days after demonetisation of rs 500 and rs 1000 adnan