MUMBAI /AMN
The Reserve Bank of India, RBI today in its annual report says that almost 99 per cent of banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes that were demonetised last November have returned to the system.
A report by the Reserve Bank of India said on Wednesday that it got back Rs 15.28 lakh crore of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore that the central government had invalidated in November last year.
In the report for 2016-17, the RBI said that out of 632.6 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 currency notes in circulation, 8.9 crore have not been returned post the note ban last November.
The government had on November 8, banned old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in an attempt to weed out black money in the country.
The old notes were allowed to be deposited in banks, with unusual deposits coming under income tax scrutiny.
The government replaced old Rs 500 notes with new ones, but no replacement for Rs 1000 notes has been made.
Instead, a new Rs 2,000 note was introduced post note ban.
RBI said there were as many 588.2 crore of Rs 500 notes, both old and new in circulation as of March 31, 2017. As of March 31, 2016, there were 1,570.7 crore Rs 500 notes in circulation.
The report further said that the cost of printing of currency notes more than doubled to Rs 7,965 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 3,421 crore in the previous year on account of new currency printing.
Besides, new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes, the RBI has also printed new Rs 200 notes.
he central government had announced in November that it was immediately scrapping old high-value banknotes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in what it said was an attempt to root out illegally acquired money in the country. It then introduced new notes of Rs 500 and a new denomination — Rs 2,000 — but did not re-introduce Rs 1,000.
READ: Jaitley defends note ban; says critics don’t understand system
It also gave time for the old notes to be deposited in banks — resulting in long queues outside banks in November and December — and said that unusually large deposits would be closely watched.
The bank recently introduced another new denomination — that of Rs 200 — into the banking system.
‘Disaster’
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Wednesday hit out at both the government and the RBI, as he called the decision a “shame”.
In posts on Twitter soon after the central bank’s report made headlines, the former finance minister said: “99% notes legally exchanged! Was demonetisation a scheme designed to convert black money into white?”
Rs 16000 cr out of demonetised notes of Rs 1544,000 cr did not come back to RBI. That is 1%.
“RBI ‘gained’ Rs 16000 crore, but ‘lost’ Rs 21000 crore in printing new notes! The economists deserve Nobel Prize.”
Other leaders of the party were just as scathing: Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala called the exercise a “disaster” and a “massive folly” that cost 104 innocent people lives.
“Utterly failed #Demonetisation is nothing but a disaster in which 104 innocent people were killed while ‘Corrupt’ made ‘Windfall Gains’.
“Demonetisation Scam,not only dented institutional sanctity of RBI,but also credibility of India abroad.PM should apologise to the nation,” he said in a series of tweets.
“Rewind: Modiji’s obfuscation exposed once again. On Ind. Day, PM claimed to have unearthed Rs 3 Lakh crore black money post demonetisation.”
“Perspective: This Rs 16000 crore is just 1 pc of the total notes demonetised,” he said.
“Dr Manmohan Singh predicted that #Demonetisation will reduce GDP by 2% and it did. Only the Economy suffered due to this massive folly!”
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