No new bank notes of Rs 2,000 denomination have been printed in financial year 2020 by the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran, The New Indian Express reports.
That the Central Bank has halted the printing of high value bank notes was conveyed to the daily by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in response to an RTI query.
The paper noted that this could have been a probable explanation for fewer Rs 2,000 notes being dispensed by ATMs.
In its reply to the paper, the RBI said 3,542.991 million notes of Rs 2,000 denomination were printed in FY17, a number which saw a dip in FY18 wherein only 111.507 million notes of the same denomination were printed. This further fell by more than half, to 46.690 million Rs 2,000 notes in FY19.
Easy hoarding of these high value notes is a problem that is being witnessed. Earlier this year, unaccounted cash worth Rs 6 crore was seized at the Andhra-Tamil Nadu border. The cash was found to be in Rs 2,000 denomination notes.
The Rs 2,000 notes came into being following the government's move in November 2016 to ban the then existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. This 'demonetisation' was then tagged as a move to curb the circulation of black money in the Indian economy.
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