ISLAMABAD, July 7: Thousands of salaried people have been facing great difficulties for the last five days as they have not been able to draw their salaries due to the failure of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to activate its inoperative online system at its main branch located in the curfew zone.

Not only cash transactions remained suspended in the 27 online branches of the NBP providing ATM facility, but even some branches of the bank in the federal capital have been sending away customers, who want to withdraw money through manual process on the pretext that no data is available about the record of the clients.

“I have been visiting the NBP foreign office branch since Friday to get my cheque cashed. But they are not entertaining me, saying the bank’s main server is down,” said a government employee on condition of anonymity.

Those worst affected by the closure of NBP branches are the salaried people, mostly pensioners. Some private bank branches were also located in the curfew-hit area but they did not have much impact on the clients.

All retired government employees of the federal capital are receiving their pensions from the main branch of the NBP, which is located in Melody Market. As a result maximum number of people have not been able to draw their pension for the month of June.

The bank officials have so far failed to convince the law enforcement agencies to allow them to run the main computer section connecting the NBP branches in the twin cities.

The bank authorities said they had powered off the main computer section because of unavailability of electricity. However, they clarified that they have sent details of the clients to all branches with instructions to process their cheques manually.

When the operation ends, the ATMs will become operational, the bank official said, adding that there was no fault in the system.

Total number of NBP branches stand at around 94 including 27 online branches. Out of the total, 23 branches are located in Islamabad and 64 in Rawalpindi and other areas.

Meanwhile, the prevailing tension has crippled business activities, inflicting loss in millions to the business community of the federal capital.

A visit to different areas of the city revealed that the main markets and commercial hubs like Aabpara, Melody, Melody Food Park, etc. remained closed for the fifth day. However, those markets, which remained partially closed include Blue Area, Jinnah Super, Farooqia Market F-6 area etc.

The worst affected area is Aabpara market, said the market’s president, Ajmal Baloch. He demanded of the government to compensate traders for the loss they were suffering during the ongoing crisis.