Rejoice! This ATM finder app is your survival kit in these cash-strapped times

Black money hoarders may or may not be getting sleepless nights, but the general public lives in constant worry. "How long will I have to stand in a bank/ATM queue today?"; "What if the cash runs out before I can withdraw any?" etc are just some of the many worries that anyone and everyone from the middleclass and below is likely to have on their minds, since the prime minister announced his demonetisation plan.

With Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes no longer being considered legal tender, people panicking about a cashless environment and ATMs being able to hold less cash because of lower value currency notes, most vestibules are running dry within a couple of hours. The situation is straight out of a dystopic sci-fi series already and anyone on the lookout for a functional ATM must feel quite like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yep, even this one.

CMS is India’s largest cash management and payment solutions firm, with over 50 per cent of all the ATM cash circulating in the country being handled by them, and the world’s fourth largest ATM cash management company. With a network spanning over 100,000 ATMs belonging to most of the top names in the banking industry and several major retail outlets, the company is in a unique position to provide the general public information about working ATMs.

CMS has launched a web-application called CMS ATM Finder to help cash withdrawers find working ATMs around them.

"A working ATM is probably top-most on most people's minds right now. Even as we are working round the clock to get as many ATMs as we can filled with cash, here's another quick step from us to make life easier for all concerned we have created the CMS ATM Finder. It's a ready reckoner of all the ATMs we manage that are dispensing cash," the company said in a statement to India Today.

All you have to do is select your state and city and the web app will list down all the functional ATMs from various banks in the city. You also have the option of notifying CMS if a particular ATM is shut or out of cash.

While according to India Today, the company has claimed that “nearly two lakh people have already used the service since last night”, the website seems to be non-functional at present. No matter what state or city you try and locate, you receive the following error message: Looks like no ATMs serviced by CMS are live in this location. Please check again later. Since we are awaiting cash for loading from the banks and fill it as soon as possible."

The idea is great one. Figuring out what ATMs are functional in your city would help people avoid long queues and might also manage to even out the pressure on certain locations. But without functionality, this web app feels a lot like this demonetisation drive: full of false hope and disappointment.

Also read - 5 ways Modi could have avoided demonetisation chaos