1 Rupee - Salem District Urban Bank Ltd.

Salem District Urban Bank Ltd. was one of hundreds of small Indian urban co-operative banks that briefly held note-issuing authority in the late colonial period before the Paper Currency Act and subsequent Reserve Bank of India legislation systematically extinguished private issue. Most of these institutions were capitalised modestly, served a single district, and circulated notes within a tight geographic radius — redemption outside Salem would have been practically impossible.

1904 predates the major co-operative legislation reforms of 1912, which tightened oversight considerably. Notes from this period, issued by district-level banks in southern India, survive in very small numbers; institutional archives were rarely preserved when these banks were wound up or absorbed.