New Delhi. Nov. 17: San Francisco-based Sugandha Dixit is calling up every Indian she knows in Northern California to find someone travelling back home before December 30. It isn't chocolates she wants to send for relatives. She has Rs 10,000 in a wad of Rs 500 notes she wants deposited in a bank.

But the four Indians she has so far found who are visiting home before the end of the year can't help her: they've told her they're already carrying their own cash, and notes from friends who beat Dixit in requesting them for help.

Dixit telephoned the only Indian bank in over 320km - a State Bank of India branch in San Jose - but the bank is not exchanging Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were declared illegal tender by Prime Minister Narendra Modi starting midnight of November 8.

Her only solace, she said, was that she wasn't alone.

Indian embassies, high commissions and consulates across continents have found themselves bombarded with complaints and demands for assistance in depositing or exchanging old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, diplomats from eight missions have confirmed to The Telegraph.

The Modi government's sudden announcement and the narrow window - till December 30 - to deposit old notes have left many in the 25 million-strong Indian diaspora, which the Prime Minister has wooed, struggling for solutions to avoid losing money they carried with them abroad legally.

Back in New Delhi, foreign embassies have sought a relaxation in the limits for deposits and withdrawals of cash from the foreign ministry. An association of money exchangers abroad has petitioned the ministry of external affairs arguing that all the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes they have risk turning worthless.

Foreign tourists in India have emailed and written to the foreign ministry seeking help - the notes they got at the foreign exchange counters on landing are now worthless, and they have to stand in long bank queues instead of visiting monuments they came to see.

"What we have done is we have referred all these matters (concerns of non-resident Indians, money exchangers, foreign missions in India and foreign tourists) to the department of economic affairs," foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said today. "We await their guidance, their advice and their recommendation, which can then be shared with those various categories who have approached us."

Reserve Bank of India rules allow an Indian flying out of the country to carry up to Rs 25,000 in currency notes. Anyone entering the country can bring up to US $10,000 worth foreign currency or Rs 25,000 in Indian currency notes under the RBI rules.

Birmingham-based Snehesh Patel had bought tickets for his 67-year-old father, his 62-year-old mother, his sister and himself to attend a cousin's wedding in Ahmedabad in February 2017.

Now, Patel he is considering advancing his tickets by two months by paying the difference in ticket fare - to stand in a queue to deposit cash the family has in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

"I'll have to miss my cousin's wedding, though my family will attend," Patel said over phone. "We don't have too much of a choice, really."

For others, like Dixit in San Francisco and Anu Vishwanathan in Munich, a visit to India doesn't even make economic sense. They weren't planning to visit, and fresh return tickets will cost them a minimum of Rs 32,000 - more than the amount they want to deposit.

Officials in New Delhi, and at Indian missions in the UK, US, Kenya, South Africa, Australia and Russia confirmed that Indian banks in those countries are not exchanging notes because they haven't yet been supplied with new Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

The foreign office is pressing the department of economic affairs to correct this anomaly that diplomats conceded is creating challenges for NRIs and others with Indian currency.

Foreign missions too have petitioned the government - formally - through the dean of the diplomatic corps here, Ambassador Han Dannenberg Castellanos of the Dominican Republic.

"Some of them have told us that diplomatic missions require higher release of funds and the existing limits will not be sufficient for them," Swarup said. Others, he said, had raised concerns over depositing and exchanging money collected in old notes over the past few months for consular or visa fees.

Tourists, Swarup said, had asked the foreign office if limits of withdrawals or exchanges could be raised for them specifically.

The fourth category of petitioners - money exchangers abroad - appears to have surprised the foreign office.

"This is quite interesting because we don't have full convertibility," Swarup said. "But it shows the strength of the Indian currency that we have money changers' associations abroad which are ready to dispense Indian rupees."

The exchangers had asked the foreign office, he said, what they could do with the "stacks they have".