New Delhi: People queuing up outside the RBI for exchanging old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 were in for a pleasant surprise on Friday afternoon when they saw food being offered to them.
This was an initiative by the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara, located nearby, which decided to offer lunch to scores of people waiting for their turn outside the apex bank.
There is no end to queues outside RBI of people coming to exchange their demonitised high-value currency notes and the lines are only getting bigger as the last date (March 31) draws near.
On Friday, there were around 600 people standing outside the bank, many of them NRIs and also some senior citizens. The huge queue also caused traffic jam and inconvenience to passers-by at Parliament Street, where the bank is located.
The customers, waiting for their turn outside in the sun, happily accepted plates of food, containing dal, rice and pickle offered by the Gurdwara.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced demonetisation of all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with a view to a crackdown on black money and counterfeit currency.
