ATM withdrawal limit raised to Rs 10K a day; weekly limit stays at 24K

New Delhi, Jan 16: Starting tomorrow, you can pull out 10,000 per day from an ATM, though a weekly limit of 24,000 per bank account remains unchanged. The RBI has increased the daily limit for ATM withdrawals from Rs. 4,500 which has been in place for a few weeks now. From current accounts, the amount that can be collected each week has been doubled to a lakh.

Limits of access to cash were declared on November 8 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the shock announcement that 500- and 1,000- rupee notes would be illegal just a few hours later. The demonetisation drive, he said, would check tax evasion, corruption and counterfeiting.

A huge cash crunch followed, driving millions of Indians into long lines at banks, and the PM in an emotional speech asked for "just 50 days" till December 30 to resolve problems. After the new year, the scarcity of notes has eased up, though the opposition has said the government has defaulted on its PM because cash restrictions remain in place and, according to most estimates, virtually all the banned notes have been deposited in banks, meaning that black money has not been destroyed or forced out.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has pointed to improved tax collections to dismiss reports of economic disruption after the notes ban.

The shock decision on abolishing high-denomination notes prompted most private economists to slash growth forecasts to 6.3-6.4 per cent for the fiscal year 2016/17 from over 7.5 per cent, citing the impact of the demonetisation, which they said would linger for one more year, but the government has called those concerns unfounded.

The Finance Ministry's Statistics Office has predicted strong economic growth in the current fiscal year that ends in March. Gross Domestic Product is estimated to expand by an annual 7.1 per cent in the current fiscal year, slower than a provisional growth of 7.6 per cent in 2015/16. But the forecast does not fully take into account the impact of the notes ban.

On Friday, Urjit Patel, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has been summoned by a parliamentary committee to explain how the demonetisation decision was taken as also to outline its impact. In a written answer ahead of his appearance, the central bank has stated that it was the government which "advised" that 500 and 1,000-rupee notes be removed from circulation, which was then cleared by the RBI the next day.

The PM announced demonetisation just 24 hours after that.

The RBI has been criticised for following the government's lead on a landmark decision on currency and for taking a backseat in the days that followed, with Mr Patel missing from briefings that made important announcements on issues like cash limits.