After local residents in the country stood hours in long lines for the exchange of their old 500 and 1000 currency notes, now NRIs and People of India Origin (PIO) are waiting in the long queues to exchange their old notes at 5 designated RBI branches in the country but because of severe strict conditions several of them have had to return disappointed.

Tempers ran high outside the central bank branches as people coming from long distances were denied entry by the guards on the grounds that they were not carrying the requisite documents.

Many NRIs complained that they were not allowed to speak to officials who could at least listen to their grievances.

Ritu Diwan an agitated US national said, though she had a foreign passport, her family still visits India every year. She still had few Indian currency notes and she wants to exchange them, but most of the NRIs and PIOs were not allowed inside the RBI.

Mr. Prime Minister are we supposed to burn Indian currency that we still have? She said.

Diwan also said “This unnecessary harassment simply indicates that PIOs are no more welcome to the country.

Dharamveer, another US national, said PIOs generally keep some amount of Indian currency as they frequently visit India. And there is no point in paying commission on the exchange of currency for each visit.

He also said that any PIO who keeps visiting the country easily have 50,000 to 1,00,000 worth of Indian currency and Dharamveer has challenged the government to prove their currency as black money and forfeit that from them. We do not spend that money in the country where we live now, but the country of our origin.

He said that by chance, he was there at this time and wanted to exchange a few of his currency notes, but they were not allowed to do so. It was very frustrating.

Many PIOs were turned away from RBI, protested that they do not have millions of rupees, but they only had few thousands which the administration must exchange.

People were frustrated towards the policy of the government and according to the reports. As a mark of protest NRIs threw defunct currency  notes at the gate of RBI.

Besides NRIs, many Indian citizens who failed to deposit their old currency notes during the 50 day limitation period, were also turned away from RBI after standing in the queue for hours.

Prime Minister said that the currency could be still exchanged till March 31st 2017 at RBI, said Ram Kumar.

Some people were still coming to RBI to exchange their notes hoping that security guards would allow them to enter and exchange their scrapped currency notes.

AMan Deep