The Reserve Bank of India has permitted the District Cooperative banks to accept the old demonetised notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 denominations, according to media reports.

The permission has been given in the wake of a request from the government. Those holding accounts can deposit money. However, the exchange of notes cannot be carried out in these firms.

The cooperative banks were not accepting the old notes after the Union Government ordered the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

The RBI has directed to accept old notes as deposit and not to replace them. The cooperative banks were first not ready to accept the scrapped notes. They were also not ready to accept the notes as deposits also. Following that, the government approached the Reserve Bank.

In Kerala there are primary co-operative banks with bank deposits of Rs 250-300 crore in the state. A cooperative bank in Kozhikode has the large investment of more than 1000 crore. The deposits in all cooperative banks will come close to one lakh crore. District cooperative banks are now under the Reserve Bank.