Ommanna Kuttan Pillai was found hanging in his ancestral home in Kottayam.
Worried that he may not get the money he had saved for several years in a cooperative bank after the currency ban, a 73-year-old man in Kerala allegedly committed suicide on Monday.
Ommanna Kuttan Pillai was found hanging in his ancestral home in Kottayam.
For about a week, he had been frantic with what appeared to be an unjustified fear that he would not get back the five lakh rupees he had saved in the local cooperative bank over the past 30 years while running a tea stall and working as a security guard.
The government is still reviewing whether it will allow cooperative banks - most are not governed by rules of the Reserve Bank of India and are run by political party members - to exchange the banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
Last week, the RBI banned cooperative banks from exchanging banned notes, reportedly so that politicians could not misuse them for money laundering and tax evasion.
"He had spoken to me two-three times this week. He spoke about a group of women who were refused Rs 20,000 by a cooperative bank which told them there was no money," said a member of the Panchayat or local village council.
Mr Pillai's son ON Binu, breaking down several times as he spoke to NDTV, said, "Father had been very distraught for the past 4-5 days... I want to tell the government that you can't make such rules and treat us like nothing, taking away the money of the poor."
Bank officials have told NDTV that Mr Pillai never went to the bank to withdraw his money. They say that though they do not have a lot of cash, they are dispensing what they can for emergencies.
Sources have told NDTV that the government may allow cooperative banks to function as regular banks.