'Black out' a bitter pill for ill, differently abled

NEW DELHI: Nuruddin, who is paralysed waist-down, tried long to avoid queuing up at a bank, but when his medicines finished on Sunday he had no option. The wheelchair-bound was among the hundreds waiting to get some cash outside an ATM at Kailash Colony market in south Delhi.

“There is unending rush at all banks and ATMs to withdraw cash. I am also trying my luck because there is no medicine left at home,“ said Nuruddin, who works with an NGO to empower spinal cord injury patients. Like him, many specially-abled and elderly people could be seen struggling to withdraw or deposit cash on Sunday . Hakim Singh, a specially abled man, said he was turned away by two banks at Ghonda Chowk in northeast Delhi forcing him to come to Chandni Chowk to withdraw cash. “I have a leg deformity and I can't stand for long, even then the bank officials at Gonda Chowk refused entry to me,“ he claimed.

Few senior citizens were seen requesting bank employees to allow them to go inside, but after being refused they joined the people waiting in the queue. “I asked them to allow me to go inside as I can't stand for long. Even bank officials are overburdened with work. There should have been a separate queue for senior citizens,“ said Jasbir Gill, a resident of Mayur Vihar-I.

Security guards at banks said the crowds often don't listen. “They protest even if a senior citizen or disabled is allowed out-of-turn entry ,“ said a guard at the Zamrudpur branch of SBI. He added that policemen had to intervene to pacify the crowd.

Rajinder (64), a retired government employee who had queued up outside a bank in Karol Bagh to withdraw cash, said he supports the demonetisation. “I am willing to stand in a long queue and suffer a little if it helps the country. This difficulty is only a temporary phase,“ he said.