"Be prepared for long queues to exchange money in India these days. And even then, there is no guarantee that you'll get your turn at the bank", says Melburnian Raj Bakshi, who travelled to India November 9, the day after Rs 500 / 1000 notes were declared illegal in India.
After flying for 23 hours from Melbourne, the Bakshi family found that money changers were either closed or had the sign "no cash available". They had to queue up at the ATM at New Delhi international airport for three hours, before they were able to exchange $100 AUD for legal Indian tender, so they could take a taxi home.
Tourists were initially allowed to exchange $300 USD per week per visitor at banks, and on average, it would take around 15-20 minutes to process each request, because of the amount of paperwork needed.
But this limit now been drastically reduced to $100 USD per week, or Rs 5000, causing even greater frustration amongst overseas visitors. "Money changers are offering to exchange dollars for a bank draft, which is practically useless for us, because we don't have bank accounts in India. Even if you manage to deposit the draft into someone else's account, there are daily restrictions on withdrawal, so it just doesn't work".
Mr Bakshi visited the main branch of State Bank of India in New Delhi yesterday, which has a special NRI processing section - but even that resulted in a great disappointment. After waiting in the queue whilst the staff took a lunch break, they were summarily told later to go home - because there were far too many customers in the queue before them, and the bank would close by the time their turn would come!
Mr Bakshi says , "the way things have been implemented, demonetisation is actually discouraging tourists at the moment." His best advice to those people thinking of travelling to India soon, is to bring credit cards with them, and to be very very patient, because "standing in long bank queues is inevitable."
