-
The facility to exchange old notes is available at the RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur. In case a person is refused deposit at these centres, he/she can appeal to the Central Board of the Reserve Bank within 14 days of such refusal
Come April 1 and it will become illegal to have in possession more than 10 notes of the demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denominations. The penalties include a fine of Rs. 10,000 or five times the face value of the demonetised notes, whichever is higher.
To avoid such unpleasant consequences, a sea of people were seen queuing up every day at the RBI office in New Delhi. According to officials, the queue starts from 6 am in the morning on the pavement outside the RBI office on Parliament Street, even though the counters open only by 10 am.
On Thursday afternoon, the serpentine queue extended for more than a kilometre. The young, old and women were seen braving the scorching mid-day sun in the hope that they would be able to secure the value of their hard earned money.
"We are here from Uttarakhand. We found Rs. 50,000 in the belongings of our deceased father and want to change these old notes," said Pradip Rawat, who was in the queue outside the RBI office, along with his brother who lives in Delhi.
"The queue is moving very slowly and most people are unable to get their old notes exchanged. There is a lot of bureaucracy," complained Purushottam Adhikari, a former colonel of the Indian Army.
"I was abroad, visiting my daughter in November and December when this happened. After coming back, I discovered some gift money received during my daughter's marriage still lying in the house. I am apprehensive that they will find some reason to not accept them," Adhikari said.
Like him, most people said they had missed the earlier December 31 deadline for reasons ranging from illness to travel. The central bank allowed Indian residents, who were abroad during November-December 2016, to exchange the scrapped notes up to March 31.
For NRIs, the window to exchange old notes is till June 30. However, the NRIs coming to India are required to come through 'Red Channel' after declaring to Customs authorities at the airport the amount of defunct notes they are carrying and then secure a certificate from them which needs to be produced at the time of depositing the old currency notes at the RBI.
On Thursday, some NRI families were seen queuing outside the RBI, trying to work out the one-page form that they must fill up and submit with required documents.
People waiting in queue outside the RBI office to exchange their old notes in New Delhi | Arvind Jain
"It is a hassle. They did not accept my Indian currency. I had not declared the money at the airport at the time of coming to India. Now, I have to to get the certificate from Customs authorities. If I am unable to get the money deposited, I will have to throw them away," said Kaushal Bhavnani, a software engineer working in San Fransisco.
So far, there is no monetary limit for exchange for eligible resident Indians, but the limit for NRIs have been set as per relevant Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations, i.e. Rs. 25,000 per person. This rule, too, caused some heartburn as people who had showed up with more than that amount were turned away from the RBI counters.
"Several people, who are ineligible, are queuing up at the RBI counters, making the queue longer," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question on the problems that people are facing in depositing the old notes in their possession. "Each application has to be checked at the counters for his/her absence from the country from passport stamp marks. It is taking considerable time for the counter staff," he added.
Currently, a PIL is being pursued in the Supreme Court, on the deadline for people to get their old notes exchanged. The apex court had pulled up the Centre earlier in March for not allowing the general public to exchange their notes till March 31 as was promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his November 8 address to the nation.
When asked if the RBI would consider extending the dates for submitting or bring about relaxations in the eligibility criteria it had set for people who can deposit their old notes, RBI spokesperson Alpana Kilawalla said the central bank has not considered any such possibility. "The eligibility criteria were set from before hand and they are not a new addition. Every one was aware of the guidelines that allowed you to deposit old notes after December 31. On extension of dates for submitting old notes, you should ask the finance ministry," said Kilawalla.
The facility to exchange old notes is available at the RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur. In case a person is refused deposit at these centres, he/she can appeal to the Central Board of the Reserve Bank within 14 days of such refusal.
These representations would need to be addressed to the Central Board, Reserve Bank of India, Secretary's Department, a RBI circular said.
