The note ban has deeply hurt Meenakshi, a 41-year-old domestic help, of Gowri Koplu in Hassan.

The woman, with speech and hearing impairment, threw ₹1.39 lakh in old currency she had saved over the years into the Hemavati near Hassan recently. With that her dream to build a small house was shattered. The notes are among those the RBI has not accepted after demonetisation.

“She stopped taking food after she realised that her hard-earned money holds no value. For several weeks, she was upset. We threw the currency into the river after neighbours and friends pointed out that keeping it would invite trouble,” said her 70-year-old mother Lakshmidevi. Ms. Meenakshi lives in a small house with her mother and younger brother Dinesh, who is also speech and hearing impaired.

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For more than 15 years, Meenakshi has been working as a domestic help. She earns about ₹1,500 a month and gets ₹1,200 pension. She developed the habit of saving quite early. When the note ban came, her relatives enquired if she had any banned currency. She refused to convey anything, fearing she may lose her money.

Finally, she understood the consequences of demonetisation from one of her employers. By then, the last day to deposit old currency in banks — March 31, 2017 — had passed. She did not have a bank account either. The Hindu had carried a report about her struggle to exchange the old currency for new ones, on April 19, 2017.

Ms. Meenakshi and her mother met senior officers of the Hassan district administration, approached several banks in Hassan and also met former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, but their efforts did not yield any results. “I went to Bengaluru as well to meet an officer. Finally, we threw the notes into the river, fearing the police may take action [against us] for keeping scrapped notes,” Ms. Lakshmidevi said.