Frustration mounts among salaried class amid cash crunch

Thousand of people across India continued to queue up outside banks and automated teller machines (ATMs) on Friday to meet their start-of-the month expenses after receiving their salaries post the government's decision to discontinue high value banknotes. Banks at most cities are running out of cash, hours after opening while in other places ATMs are either dysfunctional or dry, adding more misery to the salaried people stuck in long queues. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision last month to scrap 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes as part of a crackdown on tax dodgers and counterfeiters removed 86 percent of the currency in circulation virtually overnight.