CHENNAI: At last, there was some respite. People who stood in long, serpentine queues outside ATMs in the city were in for a surprise; the machines dispensed new notes of Rs 500 denomination. And another good news that brought cheers to the common man is more ATMs began functioning on Thursday after required re-calibration of the machines.

Though the Reserve Bank of India sent new Rs 500 notes to its branches across the country to be distributed among the banks, Chennai did not get the new notes for a long time. And the long wait ended on Thursday. ATMs of several banks, including State Bank of India, dispensed the new notes much to the cheer of the people. "I have been very depressed for the past few days since all ATMs that I went dispensed only Rs 2,000 notes. Only today, I was lucky. I got four Rs 500 notes, as I wanted Rs 2,000 from the ATM machine. I am really happy and hope that more ATMs would start dispensing Rs 500 notes in the coming days," Arun Kumar, marketing professional said.

The Reserve Bank of India has sent these new notes to all banks in Chennai and Tamil Nadu and even bank branches would start issuing them possibly from tomorrow. Ever since the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were demonetised, banks and ATMs have been dispensing only Rs 100 and Rs 2,000 notes, much to the discomfort of the people. "Now that we have new Rs 500 notes in hand, we can expect shopkeepers also to accept these notes and tender change. We hope that the ATMs would continue to dispense cash of Rs 500 denomination regularly," Nisha, a BPO employee, said as she withdrew cash from an ATM in Guindy said.