RBI stopped printing 2000 notes since Apr 1 to prevent hoarding

The Reserve Bank of India has not printed a single Rs 2,000 note from April 1 onward this year. The move is seen an attempt to curb stockpiling of black money.

The RBI confirmed this in response to an RTI reply in which it said that soon after the demonetisation, the Central bank printed 3,542.991 million Rs 2,000 notes to match with the demand after the existing Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were cancelled in October 2016.

As per the RTI reply, the volume of printing of Rs 2,000 notes came down drastically in the following year as the bank went in fast gear to print currency notes of other denominations. In 2017-18, only 111.507 million notes were produced, which was further reduced to 46.690 million notes  2018-19, said the RBI.

Earlier, the RBI had refuted the reports of



withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes but many experts feel that the stopping production in the financial year will lead to withdrawal of the high value note in near future.

Recently National Investigation Agency and Intelligence Bureau reported to Government about the tendency of hoarding the Rs 2,000 notes for illegal purposes. The agencies reported that the high value notes, especially Rs 2,000 notes will defeat the purpose of Government envisaged in the demonetisation citing many cases of seizure of such notes during raids.

The Income Tax Department and Financial Intelligence Unit also reported to the authorities that in their raids majority of the notes seized are Rs 2,000 notes, urging for the controlling the circulation of the high value notes preferred by those involved in tax evasion and financial crimes.