High-value notes worth Rs 2.46 lakh cr not released: SBI

Mumbai, Dec 20 (IANS) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had printed high denomination notes worth Rs 15,78,700 crore as on December 8, of which Rs 2,46,300 crore has not been supplied to the market, state-run State Bank of India (SBI) said on Wednesday.

Based on the government and RBI data, the SBI, in a research note titled "Are Rs 2,000 high denomination notes being held back?", said that deducting the small denomination notes in circulation on December 8 this year, printed high-value currency worth Rs 2,46,300 crore had not been released in the market.

"As per the information given by the Ministry of Finance in the Lok Sabha, the RBI has printed 16,957 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 3,654 million pieces of Rs 2,000 notes as on December 8. Total value of such notes translates into Rs 15,787 billion," said the SBI Ecoflash report authored by Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Soumya Kanti Ghosh.

As per the RBI data, that the value of small denomination currency in circulation upto March 2017 was Rs 3,50,100 crore.

"This implies that the value of high denomination notes was equivalent to Rs 13,324 billion as on December 8 after we net out the small denomination notes from the currency in circulation on that day," the SBI said.

"This means that the residual amount of high currency notes (Rs 15,787 billion-Rs 13,324 billion) of Rs 2,463 billion may have been printed by the RBI but not supplied in the market," the report said.

"As a logical corollary, as 2,000 denomination currency (following demonetisation) led to challenges in transactions, it thus indeed seems that RBI may have either consciously stopped printing the 2,000 denomination notes or printing in smaller numbers," it added.

The report concluded that the share of small currency notes in total currency in circulation at present may have touched 35 per cent in value terms.