10-rupee coins ‘demonetised’ by banks: Agents

Association’s state president SA Ponnusamy accompanied by other members met assistant general manager of the RBI Venketesan and handed over a memorandum in this regard. Ponnusamy said “The milk agents are not to be blamed as they had taken the coins from the consumers as it was a legal tender and the banks also accepted them. Now with the banks also refusing to receive these coins due to constraints in counting them.” 

“A similar petition was also handed over to the chief minister’s special cell at the secretariat” he added. 

A spokesman for Raj Milk said, “we are unable to accept the coins as banks refuse to accept it. They want us to circulate it back into the market which is impossible as milk agents say that even if they accept coins, they can only give it back to us as payment for indented milk.”

Dodla Milk regional manager M Muthiah said “the payment in coins mutual between our company and agents. But, banks, which collect cash from our office, have informed their cash collection vans not to accept coins from us. One bank even went to the extent of asking those agents, who made their payment in coins, to close their accounts. As a measure to tide over this problem, we asked our agents to deposit the amount in their accounts and make payments by way of cheques to us. Again, the coins proved to be a problem for the agents as the banks rejected them.” 

Senior Aavin officials said they accepted coins from milk agents. Though banks initially demurred, they accepted the coins from us as we are a government institution, he said. Muthiah said he still had coins worth Rs 3 lakh with him due to banks’ refusal to accept them.

Siva Krishna Prasad, a shopkeeper at Vepery, said “We have accumulated ten-rupee coins worth Rs 7000. It is natural that milk majors will have larger amounts in coins.”