COIMBATORE: Even as official channels yielded no solution to this 92-year-old woman’s quest to convert Rs 33,000 in demonetised currency notes, members of Rajini Makkal Mandram has stepped in to offer relief.
A few functionaries of the organisation visited the woman at her home in Kondampalayam on Thursday and handed over Rs 33,000 in valid currency.
The Mandram’s District Joint Secretary J P Shanmugam says that they got to know about the story of R Kamalammal through the news.
While Kamalammal and her family have been trying to get the notes converted for a year and a half now, it was only this week that they took it up with the Collector and informed the media -- all in the hope of finally finding a way out of the quagmire.
“The elderly woman had saved the money over the years; she cannot tell when she started saving it or what she had intended to do with it. We decided to take up the task of getting the notes converted into legal tender,” explains Shanmugam.
Not wanting to keep the woman waiting endlessly, the Mandram handed over valid currency notes to Kamalammal on Thursday. They have submitted the demonetised currency notes to the organisation’s head office. If and when they find a way to get them converted, that money too will be handed over to Kamalammal, he assures.
Kamalammal and her family found her stash of savings -- Rs 33,000 in all -- only a year and a half ago when they were moving from one house to another.
Though her son Gopal had converted the money they had had soon after demonetisation was announced, the elderly woman had been unaware of this bundle of savings until they emptied out her wardrobe during the move.
The news reached the media days after 75-year-old Rangammal died, when her and her sister Thangammal’s (78) lifetime savings could not be used for her medical treatment. They all were in demonetised currency notes.
*Earlier reports mistakenly mentioned the woman’s name as Kuppammal. The error is regretted.