Elderly woman dies in queue for exchanging old notes

A 70-year-old woman died today while standing in a queue for exchanging demonetised banknotes outside a bank at Vuyyuru town in Krishna district, police said.

K Vijayalakshmi was standing in line outside the State Bank of India for over an hour when she suddenly collapsed, said a sub-inspector attached to Vuyyuru Town police station.

He said Vijayalaxmi wanted her old Rs 500 notes exchanged for new tenders.

"She was immediately rushed to hospital, where she was declared dead before admission," the SI said, adding that exact cause of her death will be known after postmortem.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 banknotes last Tuesday in a bid to weed out black money.
 

However, the surprise move triggered scramble among people to either exchange the scrapped notes or to deposit/withdraw their money at bank counters. Cash-strapped people are queueing up in large numbers outside ATMs across the country.