A pork vendor in Mylavaram, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh, lost 5 lakh notes when termites ate them without his knowledge in recent months.
“Jamalayya stuffed the money in a plastic bag and kept it in a trunk to protect the money from the clutches of his son who would consume him for alcohol,” a police officer confirmed to IANS.
According to police, Jamalayya saved money to build a house.
He stuffed the money into a plastic bag made from used fertilizer bags.
“We had heavy rains in 2020 and when the weather is bad, the termite problem is big. So the insects have eaten the banknotes,” said the official.
The poor man’s innocence in what happened to his hard-earned money was shattered Tuesday when he reached into the trunk to repay someone’s debt.
After all of Jamalyya’s family members discovered the loss, they emptied the trunk on a bed and on the floor to sit around and save as much as possible.
The banknote denominations included Rs 500, Rs 200, Rs 100, Rs 20 and Rs 10.
The disturbed family members looked helplessly at the bitten off banknotes with gaping holes.
Moved by Jamalayya’s predicament, officials approached the Bank of Baroda in Vijayawada to compensate, the official said.
“Depending on how much the Bank of Baroda will pay, we will plan a panchnama of the balance and send it to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),” the official said of the police agency’s plan to contribute.
Mylavaram is 44 km north of Vijayawada.
