State Bank of India Chairperson, Arundhati Bhattacharya today claimed that around Rs.1.20 lakh crore have been deposited during the last 15 days after the demonetisation of high value currencies.

Replying to a specific question on the impact of demonetisation on the bank’s performance, Bhattacharya told reporters at the city airport that about Rs.1.20 lakh crore have been deposited by the public during the 15 days.

When asked about the performance during this quarter, in view of this sudden surge of deposits, she said that the performance will be better and the bank would be doing good business, since one-third of the total amount deposited after demonetisation was in SBI.

When asked about the issues in availability of Rs . 100 and Rs.500 notes, Bhattacharya said that as far as Rs . 100 was concerned, there was lot of currencies available. However, people were not not keen on spending and bothered about exchange and depositing high value curries.

“Yes. Rs.500, lack of it has been an issue. However with supply being strengthened by RBI, the problem will be solved in a few days”. “We are going to deposit the 500 notes in all our recalibrated ATMs so that the people can utilise it,” she said.

When asked about the reported waiver of loans by Vijay Mallya, Bhattacharya said that time and again the bank has come out with the clarification that it was done as part of preparing a clean balance sheet.

Technical and physical write off is not waiver and the bank is doubling the efforts to recover all the dues and not shirking the efforts, she said.

“Those who are alleging, is doing it with an intention of creating mischief”, she said adding that there was no no necessity to indulge in such matter, since it was going to create panic among the public.