RBI cautious on post-demonetisation deposits, stresses verification

The Reserve Bank of India on Saturday said it needs to be careful on divulging the post-demonetisation deposit amount as the figure needs to be verified first and should not be just an estimate.

“The number that we should now divulge should be a verified number and congruent with the complex accounting,” Governor Urjit Patel said here post the RBI Board meet with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

“There are tens of thousands of bank branches and 4,000 currency chests. We need to be careful and try that this is a number which is not a mere estimate but a verified number both physically and in the accounting sense,” Patel added when asked about the estimated amount of old currency notes that have come back.

RBI had earlier said that notes worth Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been deposited till December 10, 2016.

There were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation on November 8, 2016, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement of demonetising the two high denomination notes.

The total amount of high denomination currency circulating in the system on that day was, thus, Rs 15.44 lakh crore (Rs 8.58 lakh crore in Rs 500 notes and Rs 6.86 lakh crore in Rs 1,000).

Jaitley said the meeting with the RBI was to discuss the various Budget suggestions and the current economic situation.

When asked about RBI not going for a rate cut in its latest monetary policy review on February 8, he said: “All Finance Ministers have the perpetual desire, but at the end we all respect the decision that the RBI takes.”