Demonetisation: 99% of banned Rs 500/100 notes worth Rs 15.28 lakh crore back in system, says RBI

New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday said that almost 99 percent of banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes that were demonetised last November have returned to the system.

The Reserve Bank revealed in its annual report for 2016-17 that Rs 15.28 lakh crore, or 99 percent of the Rs 15.44-lakh-crore scrapped currency notes, had come back to the central bank between the government’s demonetisation decision and June 30, 2017.

The report further said that 8.9 crore old Rs 1,000 notes out of 632.6 crore yet to be returned post demonetisation. This amounts to 1.3 percent of the Rs 1,000 notes in circulation before the demonetisation announcement on November 8, 2016.

A total of 7.62 lakh pieces of counterfeit currency notes detected in FY'17 as against 6.32 lakh in FY'16, RBI said.

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, RBI said.

The central bank In its annual report also raised concerns over the fiscal health of public sector banks.

On November 8 last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes as invalid, there were about 6,858 million Rs 1,000 notes worth Rs 6.86 lakh crore in circulation. This figure was given by Santosh Kumar Gangwar, minister of state for finance, on February 3 this year.

Below are the key highlights of RBI annual report.

• The value of banknotes in circulation declined by 20.2 percent over the year to Rs 13,102 billion as at end-March 2017. 
  
• The volume of banknotes, however, increased by 11.1 percent, mainly due to higher infusion of banknotes of lower denomination in circulation following the demonetisation. 
  
• In value terms, the share of Rs 500 and above banknotes, which had together accounted for 86.4 percent of the total value of banknotes in circulation at end-March 2016, stood at 73.4 percent at end-March 2017. 
  
• The share of newly introduced Rs 2000 banknotes in the total value of banknotes in circulation was 50.2 percent at end-March 2017. 
  
• In volume terms, Rs 10 and Rs 100 banknotes constituted 62.0 percent of total banknotes in circulation at end-March 2017 as compared with 53.0 percent at end-March 2016.