Forged letterheads with demands for exorbitant amounts of small change soon began appearing. When the bank implemented rationing to ensure that a person could collect coins only once a day, the touts employed several youths. Many of them sneaked in for second and third helpings. An RBI officer recalls how he caught a tout selling a whopping 150 bags of coins right outside the office. The coins are sold in a string of shops all over the city, especially in shop-infested Zaveri Bazar, for premiums ranging between five and seven rupees a bag of 100 coins.
Most small traders are happy to pay the touts small premium to obtain their supply.
The coins are also taken to Gujarat and melted down for their metal and sometimes used as washers in machinery. Many RBI officers feel that the country's premier bank should be left to formulate policy measures and delegate the task of distributing currency to smaller banks.