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Demonetization: Companies become samaritans, provide food to bankers, crowds

Crowds have been scurrying outside banks and ATMs for hours since PM Modi's demonetization announcement. To ease the situation for bankers and crowds, food service chains and private companies started serving snacks and drinks to them.

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Employees from IT service company MPhasis handing out water bottles to people waiting outside an ATM.
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Food service chains and a few private companies are the new good samaritans, providing some much-needed respite by serving snacks and drinks to crowds lining up outside ATMs and banks, causing a situation that the Supreme Court has dubbed a “serious issue.”

On November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the decommissioning of the old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes as a legal tender, in an attempt to curb black money and move towards a cashless economy. Since his televised announcement, crowds have been thronging outside ATMs and banks in a frantic attempt to withdraw, and exchange or deposit cash before the December 30 deadline.

Quick Service Restaurants like Pizza Hut, FreshMenu, Genuine Broaster Chicken (GBC), and a private IT company Mphasis took it upon themselves to provide food and drinks to bankers and the crowds. While some said it was a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity, others said they just wanted to help out.

Unnat Verma, Managing Director of Pizza Hut, India Subcontinent, stated, “We did not think of the initiative as a CSR activity. We noticed that apart from the long queues, long hours and cancelled holidays, bankers were also staying as late as 2 am - 3 am (long after the customers had left) to complete back-end paperwork. “ He added, “We just wanted to bring smiles to the faces of people standing in queues and salute the spirit of bankers working tirelessly for the common man.” The QSR served pizzas and water in 30 banks and ATMs across Pune, Delhi- NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai.


“People call it a CSR activity, but it is more than that for us. We are doing it for our fight against black money,” said Karan Tanna, founder of Yellow Tie Hospitality, which owns the franchise rights for Genuine Broaster Chicken. Tanna stated that people at the restaurant chain were wondering how to contribute to the situation, and lime juice seemed like the best option. GBC deployed 15 volunteers to serve lime juice from 11 am to 7 pm, to crowds outside ATMs and banks in Mumbai and Raipur.

However, GBC complained of drinks being snatched by trespassers who were attempting to free load. The restaurant chain had to abandon its service in the areas where such incidents had created a havoc.

Bengaluru-based IT company Mphasis, served bananas and biscuits as a part of their CSR activity. The company had an average of 15 volunteers in all their five cities of operation, and targeted areas within the 5-km radius of their office. They decided to serve outside ATMs and banks where queues consisted of 50-100 people. “We started on Monday and decided that we would progress depending on the response. We carried out the activity till Thursday, as we got an overwhelming response and a lot of blessings from people,” said the company spokesperson Meenu Bhambhani.


All the aforementioned companies chose to undertake services that did not tighten their cost margins and allowed them to help in a way they wanted to. While Pizza Hut chose to distribute food that was more time consuming to cook and consume, online food service company FreshMenu decided to stick to serving sandwiches, cookies, and their beverage Coldflame, which was fast on consumption. CEO and Founder Rashmi Daga said, "We were serving bankers and crowds in bank branches that were above our kitchens. It was not too much of an effort as we do delivery everyday and we are already familiar with the managers." The company undertook this activity for two days and distributed food during their off-peak hours. "The first couple of days post the demonetization announcement, we were trying to grapple with the situation but since banks are doing their bit, we wanted to provide any kind of help we could," Daga said.

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