RBI may be holding back Rs 2,000 notes: SBI report

Agencies

December 21, 2017

New Delhi, Dec 20: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may either be holding back Rs 2,000 notes or could have stopped printing high denomination currency, says a SBI Research report.

Juxtaposing the data presented in the Lok Sabha recently with the one provided by RBI in its Annual Report earlier, the SBI Ecoflash report said on Wednesday, "we observe" that the value of small denomination currency in circulation up to March 2017 was Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

This implies that the value of high denomination notes was equivalent to Rs 13.32 lakh crore as on December 8, after netting out the small denomination notes from the currency in circulation on that day, it said.

The report further said that as per the Ministry of Finance in the Lok Sabha recently, the RBI has printed 1,695.7 crore pieces of Rs 500 notes and 365.4 crore pieces of Rs 2,000 notes as on December 8. The total value of such notes translates into Rs 15.79 lakh crore.

"This means that the residual amount of high currency notes (the difference between Rs 15.79 lakh crore Rs 13.32 lakh crore) of Rs 2.46 lakh crore may have been printed by the RBI but not supplied in the market," said the report authored Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, SBI.

Interestingly, the report added, "it is safe to assume" that Rs 2.46 lakh crore may be on the lower side as the RBI must have printed notes of small denomination in the interregnum (Rs 50 and Rs 200).

"As a logical corollary, as Rs 2,000 denomination currency led to challenges in transactions, it thus indeed seems that RBI may have either consciously stopped printing the Rs 2,000 denomination notes/or printing in smaller numbers after initially it was printed in ample amount to normalise the liquidity situation," said Ecoflash.

This also means that the share of small currency notes in total currency in circulation now may have touched 35% in value terms, it added.

The government on November 8 last year had announced demonetisation of high value notes, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, which together accounted for 86-87% of the currency in circulation.

The move had lead to huge cash shortage and large queues were witnessed at banks for exchange or depositing the scrapped currency.

The RBI introduced a new Rs 2,000 note as well as new version of the Rs 500 note.

Subsequently, the RBI, for the first time, also introduced a Rs 200 note.

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20 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza by resistance fighters: Hamas

News Network

November 12,2024

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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