Hyderabad: Activities in government offices were badly hit on Thursday as employees made a beeline to banks to withdraw the Rs 10,000 cash that was disbursed as part of salary for this month.

Employees had to wait in queues for hours together to draw salary leaving their work. At the Secretariat, hundreds of employees waited in long queues since morning to draw cash.

Though there are two banks at the Secretariat, only one bank could disburse cash while the other bank closed counters as there was no cash supply from RBI. This resulted in hundreds of employees queuing up the State Bank of Hyderabad, the only bank functioning.

They stood in long queues throughout the day to obtain cash due to which all the offices at Secretariat wore a deserted look. Even activities in offices of Heads of Departments (HoDs) and commissionerates located across the city were adversely affected with employees busy obtaining cash from banks throughout the day. Senior officials could not ask staff to resume duties as they have been complaining of cash crunch since past three weeks.

Following repeated requ-ests made by Telangana employees’ associations to disburse at least Rs 10,000 from their salary in cash this month to meet emergency needs, the government had agreed to do so. The employees said they would find it difficult to withdraw cash from banks and ATMs if their entire salary was credited in bank accounts as before. There was even more demand to secure the cash as the bank provided it in lower denominations.

Employees said they got only Rs 2000 notes from banks and ATMs earlier but they served no purpose with no one accepting them due to problem of change.

“I came to the bank at 10 am. There was already a long queue. I had to wait in queue for four hours to obtain cash. Since, they are giving lower denomination notes, I had no option but to wait and obtain them. We are getting only `2000 notes outside, which serves no purpose,” said B. Mallikarjun, an employee of municipal department.