New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the Reserve Bank of India has sufficient stock of cash, which would last way beyond December 30.
“RBI has adequate cash, not only to last till December 30, but well beyond that,” said Jaitley while briefing the media here.
On the question of being less prepared, Jaitley said: “There was complete preparation. Not even for a single day did the RBI not release adequate currency stock through the banking system.”
“The currency which got printed might have gone to Post Offices and from there to banks and again back to currency chest so there could be double counting and scope for inaccuracies. So we do not want to guess the figures (of currency in circulation),” he said.
Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said the currency situation has considerably improved since November 8 and there is adequate currency with RBI to meet the demand till December 30. While announcing the demonetising the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked holders of such notes to deposit them in banks.
He said notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 with new design and more security features were being introduced in the market. The scrapped currency made up for 86 per cent or over Rs 15.45 lakh crore of notes in circulation as on November 8.
Before the announcement of demonetisation, the government had already arranged for the printing of 200 crore Rs 2,000 notes, or roughly about Rs 4 lakh crore in value. They were the first set of notes to be circulated.
Thereafter, a new Rs 500 note was introduced and now all the four printing presses of RBI at Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, Nashik in Maharashtra, Salboni in West Bengal and Mysuru in Karnataka are working overtime to replenish the exhausted currencies.
