Demonetisation: New Rs 500 notes in Odisha from today

Bhubaneswar: Reserve Bank of India, Bhubaneswar has said new Rs 500 notes will be available in different bank counters across Odisha from Thursday and urged people to ignore rumours on circulation of fake Rs 10 coins.

"We have received the new Rs 500 notes today. However, they are less in number. We are trying to send them to selected chests of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack by this evening and other parts of the state by tomorrow," RBI general manager S P Mohanty said.

Mohanty said the new Rs 500 currency notes are expected to help streamline the market following the demonetisation of the old high value notes. He, however, said the new Rs 500 notes will not be available in ATMs for the time being.

Mohanty said the ATMs were being configured for new Rs 2,000 notes. Configuration for new Rs 500 notes is yet to be done and hence will be initially available only at bank counters.

The RBI official also appealed to people not to be carried away by rumours of fake Rs 10 coin and said RBI had not banned any coin of the denomination.

Meanwhile, fresh currency notes have reached Odisha by Air India flights after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik took up the matter with Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley, officials said.

RBI Regional Director P K Das has been monitoring the operations and reportedly asked the regional chiefs of all the banks to send the fresh notes to the far flung areas, so that rural people do not face any trouble, they said.

In an effort to streamline availability of currency notes in Odisha's rural areas, about 7,000 banking correspondents are operating in the non-banked region of the state.

"These people will man operation in 4,400 gram panchayat offices where there is no banking facilities," Chief Secretary A P Padhi said.

The government, he said, will provide all support to banks like using the panchayat offices for banking services in rural pockets.