The RBI or Reserve Bank of India has lifted all restrictions on cash withdrawals from March 13 on savings bank accounts, as had been announced by the central bank last month. On January 30, the RBI had ended all curbs on withdrawals from current accounts, cash credit accounts and overdraft accounts. The Reserve Bank has been progressively easing the withdrawal limits it imposed after the November 8 withdrawal of high value notes. The limits were placed following the November 8 demonetisation of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes. Though RBI had removed the limits on withdrawals from ATMs on 1 February, it was still within the overall limit of the savings bank account.
The upper limit at ATMs was just Rs. 2,500 initially per day and was later raised to Rs. 4,500. In January, the RBI had hiked the daily ATM withdrawal limit to Rs. 10,000 and doubled the weekly current account withdrawal limit to Rs. 1 lakh. The upper limit for weekly withdrawal from bank accounts had been raised to Rs. 24,000 from Rs. 20,000 in November.
In February, the weekly withdrawal limit per account was raised to Rs. 50,000 from Rs. 24,000. The announcement was made by RBI Deputy Governor R. Gandhi following the fiscal’s last monetary policy review announcement by the central bank in February, when it kept its key interest rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent. “Effective February 20, 2017, the limits from cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts will be enhanced to Rs. 50,000 per week from the current limit of Rs. 24,000 per week (and) effective March 13, 2017, there will be no limits prescribed by RBI on cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts,” he said.
