Indian rupee notes cancelled.

Pollycat

Reading on the TA Goa board, things are no better.

ATMs empty, a lot of places who had been taking the old notes now not doing so.

I understand the new 500 rps notes are too big to go in the ATMs so refits are needed.

This is a comment from a BBC article:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked people to remain calm and give the government 50 days to fully replace the banned notes with new ones

Link here (paragraph 5):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-37996411

Gloomendoom

konark wrote: »

Who will have any faith in the currency when the new notes are introduced, knowing they can be worthless overnight.

That's the risk you have to take if you don't want to pay your taxes.

Voyager2002

Gloomendoom wrote: »

That's the risk you have to take if you don't want to pay your taxes.

Yes, but tax-dodgers hold their wealth in gold, land or other assets.

Voyager2002

A heads-up: since the demonetised notes accounted for more than 80 per cent of the cash in circulation, there is a crippling shortage of cash now. For instance, the ATM in Mumbai airport is out of money. Arriving passengers who need a taxi to their hotel may have to pay in chocolate, or Scotch, or....

Pollycat

For those people travelling or planning to travel to India in the next few months, this may be of interest:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/pm-narendra-modi-may-need-six-more-months-to-replace-junk-banknotes/articleshow/55473248.cms

kateosrose

I understand that charities working in India are accepting rupees as donations. If you are unable to return your rupees you could put them towards a good cause. I know that Action Village India (actionvillageindia.org.uk) is accepting small donations on behalf of their partners who aim to impact the rights of rural villagers, through education, micro-enterprise and community services. Rural villagers have been hit particularly hard by the cash crisis, many of whom do not own a bank account and is prohibitive to travel to towns to exchange their notes.

Pollycat

kateosrose wrote: »

I understand that charities working in India are accepting rupees as donations. If you are unable to return your rupees you could put them towards a good cause. I know that Action Village India (actionvillageindia.org.uk) is accepting small donations on behalf of their partners who aim to impact the rights of rural villagers, through education, micro-enterprise and community services. Rural villagers have been hit particularly hard by the cash crisis, many of whom do not own a bank account and is prohibitive to travel to towns to exchange their notes.

I've posted my 500 rps notes off this morning to someone who is going to pass them onto a charity.

ETA:
kateosrose
You might want to post also on the Goa board of Tripadvisor.
There's lots of Brits who holiday in Goa who will probably have old notes that will be of no use to them.

MatthewP

Just returned from Goa yesterday.

Long queues at ATM's in tourist areas. If you want to get cash out try ATM's in quieter locations (if you are heading to the north from the airport places like Dona Paula, Caranzalem and other outer suburbs of Panaji are quieter). Going earlier in the day tended to be less busy too.

Expect to queue for around two hours at worst to get cash. Take water and suntan lotion!

You will only be able to get ₹2000 each day from an ATM. It will probably be a single note, and because of the shortage of smaller notes (₹100's etc.) generally no one has change, so best to try and spend in ₹2000 increments. Take multiple credit/debit cards with you to increase the amount of cash you can get on a given day, remembering to let your bank know about your trip in advance (nothing worse than queuing for two hours for cash for your bank to refuse the transaction!).

If you are exchanging old notes you will be able to change ₹4000 at each bank each day at best (though some places are putting checks in place to try and stop people going each day now).

Some taxis, shacks and shops are still taking old notes, as they can still bank them anyway. Some places are devaluing old currency and letting you get ₹300 of goods for every old ₹500 you want to use.

Basically just use your credit card to buy everything, and only go to places that take cards. Rubbish time for every small business person that doesn't have a card payment facility.

MatthewP

al266 - we spent several days as a foreigner trying to change old notes back into pounds, dollars, anything.

There is no process in place. Banks couldn't help us because we don't have an Indian bank account, Thomas Cook has a policy not to do money exchange for old notes.

I can understand why, if foreigners could easily change old notes into foreign currency, this would become an easy way for black money to be turned white. Just annoying for those of us with white money and no way to change it back to pounds.

gld73

I'm just back from India, and there is still no improvement with the currency situation. It's officially illegal to buy/sell rupees outside India, so I had to get cash on arrival at the airport (Delhi). The exchange booths in the baggage hall were all shut (due to having no money) so there was a huge queue at the one outside - and each person was limited to exchanging just £30, £40 or 40 euros.

In Delhi, Agra and Jaipur (the places I stayed), most banks and ATMs had the shutters down, and/or signs saying they had no cash. The rare ones that had received a delivery of the new 2000 rupee notes were obvious - there were queues down the street. When I finally got to the front of an ATM queue, it wouldn't let me do the withdrawal as cards used for the first time at a bank can only withdraw money 24hrs later (I don't know if this is a new hurdle put in to discourage withdrawals?! The 2 other tourists in the queue had the same problem.) Even if you do manage to withdraw, it is one 2000 rupee note you get, no more, no less (this is £25 approx).

It's all very well saying 'use credit cards' but this limits you to higher end vendors - India is very much a cash society. And EVERYONE expects tips for the slightest thing, very difficult when you have no small denomination money. People are hoarding cash because it's so difficult to get, so the notes aren't going back into circulation.

If you pay by dollars, euros or sterling (or even the 2000 rupee note you finally managed to get after hours of standing in a queue), it's difficult to get change, I ended up buying additional stuff I didn't need just to get the total up to somewhere near the value of my £10 or $20 rather than buy something for around £4 and not get change.

I didn't die in a queue to get money as some Indians have, so there's a limit to how much I can complain about the situation! - but it's a pretty bad time to go to India as a tourist....