AMB Cinemas rejects Rs 2,000 note, artist posts duel on Instagram reels; gold shops, petrol bunks, food apps get more notes

HYDERABAD: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) indeed stirred a proverbial hornet’s nest by coming up with an announcement of scrapping the Rs 2,000 note from September 30, 2023.

In the same breath, the apex bank had said that the notes would be accepted as legal tender.

Well, when a moviegoer visited AMB theatres in the upmarket Kondapur in Hyderabad, she encountered a strange experience. When she gave a Rs 2,000 note, the theatre authorities refused to accept the same saying that they were instructed by their management not to accept Rs 2,000 notes.

The customer argued and sought to know the rationale behind the rejection.

The customer, Dhriti Bumb, put up the worst duel with the movie theatre executive, on Instagram reels. According to her Insta bio, she’s a musician/band singer, performer, writer, guitarist and percussionist.

She reasoned with the theatre executive if the theatre was above the Government of India and the RBI. She sought to know when the apex bank had declared that Rs 2,000 note was accepted as legal tender why was the theatre not accepting the same. The manager argued that the management of AMB cinemas instructed the staff not to accept the currency in that denomination. Though he seemed chickened out for a while when she said she was recording the argument and also when she had raised questions about the overruling of the instruction of the RBI by the theatre, he regained his strength and he too began recording without budging from his stand.

The two argued on the issue.

The decision of the RBI resulted in the people “smoking out” wads of notes tucked in hoards from nondescript places and began to troop to banks and other places to exchange them.

The cash transactions at petrol stations, jewellery stores and even food apps began moving northwards.

The RBI scrapped submission of the prescribed request forms to exchange notes up to Rs 20,000 in banks. Since it has to be accepted as legal tender, people are rushing to all possible outlets to exchange them.

Before the scrapping, petrol stations used to receive Rs 2,000 notes to the tune of only 10 percent of their cash transactions. But now it surged close to 90 percent, according to the All India Petroleum Dealers Association. Even for a litre of petrol, buyers are tendering a Rs 2,000 note.

Gold shops are facing a greater rush. Dhanteras, which is yet to come this year, and Akshaya Tritiya, which is over, are two seasons for the purchase of gold. But the gold rush has come before in the shops in the form of a farewell to Rs 2,000 notes.

Food delivery apps are now facing huge CoD (cash on delivery) orders. Zomato on Monday tweeted that 72 percent of it’s CoD orders were being paid in Rs 2,000 denominations.

Several eCommerce platforms, online grocery stores are witnessing a spike in CoDs that too in Rs 2,000 denominations.

In fact, RBI Governor Shaktikantha Das on Monday clarified that the notes would be accepted as legal tender as of now until September 30 and the RBI would be sensitive to people’s hardships and it would take care to ensure that whole transactions would be smooth and peaceful.

For now, the Rs.2,000 is trending all over social media platforms and the resultant skirmishes offline are making inroads into reels and posts.