New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its annual report released on Wednesday revealed that about 99 per cent of the banned 500- and 1,000-rupee currency notes returned.
According to RBI estimates, a total of Rs 15.28 lakh crore in banned 500- and 1,000-rupee currency notes were returned by June 30, 2017, out of the estimated 15.40-15.5 lakh crore in 500- and 1,000-rupee notes in circulation before the notes ban.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year in a surprise move banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to counter black money, with the high denomination notes losing their legal tender status from midnight of November 8. After the shock note ban decision, the government gave a 50-day window to deposit old notes by December 30, 2016. However, for some other categories of people, like NRIs, the deadline expired on June 30, 2017.
According to a reply given in Rajya Sabha on December 2 by Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, there were 1,716.5 crore pieces of 500 notes and 685.8 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation. That amounted to a total of Rs. 15.44 lakh crore in value.
Some other highlights from the RBI’s annual report say that the value of banknotes in circulation declined by 20.2 per cent over the year to Rs. 13.10 lakh crore as of end-March 2017. The volume of banknotes, however, increased by 11.1 per cent, mainly due to higher infusion of banknotes of lower denomination in circulation following the demonetisation. In value terms, the share of 500-rupee and above banknotes, which had together accounted for 86.4 per cent of the total value of banknotes in circulation at end-March 2016, stood at 73.4 per cent at end-March 2017. The share of newly introduced 2,000-rupee in the total value of banknotes in circulation was 50.2 per cent at end-March 2017.
In volume terms, 10-rupee and 100-rupee banknotes constituted 62.0 per cent of total banknotes in circulation at end-March 2017 as compared with 53.0 per cent at end-March 2016. The total expenditure of the Reserve Bank more than doubled to Rs 31,155 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 14,990 crore in 2015-16, primarily due to increase in expenditure on printing of new notes as a part of remonetisation of currency and provisions.
The total expenditure incurred on printing notes stood at Rs 7,965 crore for the current year (July 2016 - June 2017) as against Rs 3,420 crore during 2015-16. The upsurge in expenditure during the year was on account of change in the production plan of printing presses due to the introduction of new design notes in higher denominations as well as requirement of larger volume of notes for replacement of the demonetised currency.
Shame on RBI: PC
New Delhi: Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday used RBI figures to lash out at it, saying one per cent of the demonetised notes not coming back to the central bank was a ‘shame on RBI’. The Congress said government utterly failed and 104 innocent lives were lost during the exercise and demanded an apology from the PM.
“99 per cent notes legally exchanged! Was demonetisation a scheme designed to convert black money into white?,” Chidambaram said on Twitter. He also said that the economists behind the demonetisation move ‘deserve Nobel prize’ as the RBI gained Rs 16,000 crore, but lost Rs 21,000 crore in printing new notes