Demonetisation: How these good Samaritans saved the day

CHENNAI: The impact of demonetisation has hit the common man hard, but this has not deterred Good Samaritans from being kind towards people around them during these times of distress.

Khushboo Gupta, an Infosys employee in Hyderabad, said she had to board a train on Friday night but didn't have any money on her and all ATMs nearby were out of service.

"I went to a bakery and asked for help. The owner promptly agreed to swipe my card on his swipe machine and gave me five Rs 100 notes," Gupta said.

People took to Facebook and Twitter to express their gratitude and share their stories.

Bengaluru -based Anand Rajamani posted on Facebook that he was in the mall buying food. Unfortunately, he did not have cash and his card did not work at the counter. The person standing next to him covered the expense "without hesitation." But he had only one condition -- pass the favour on to the next person in need.

A Twitter user who goes by the handle @hiy27047173 posted that he did his bit by buying the maid a week's worth of groceries through an online delivery service.

While on one hand, cab drivers rejected passengers on hearing that they had only demonetised currency notes, R Udaiya Shankar, a cab driver in Chennai, received Rs 500 notes from a man whom he dropped at Mahabalipuram on Saturday.

"I did not deny him the ride. Why should I? Everyone is facing problems with the ATMs being closed and long queues," Shankar said.

Meanwhile, Lokesh Verma, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, has created a website where users can search and add real-time information about ATMs all over India with cash and less crowd. Lokesh launched the page on Sunday evening.

In just three hours, he tweeted that the website had got 60,000 hits and he had to upgrade the server to avoid it from crashing. He is taking care of all the expenses required for keeping the website afloat and is actively addressing any bugs which users are reporting to him on Twitter.