In a move seen as gradual phasing out of high denomination currency notes, the banks have begun dispensing of Rs 500 notes as against Rs 2,000 notes. Even as there are no directions from the finance ministry in this regard, the banks have started to do so for the convenience of customers, news agency PTI reported citing unidentified sources. In an RTI response in 2019, the RBI had said that it has stopped printing Rs 2,000 currency notes. The government-owned Indian Bank recently said that it has decided to end the use of Rs 2,000 currency notes in its ATMs. The bank said that the move is in wake of customers facing difficulty in finding a change of Rs 2,000 notes. The cash dispensation would be disabled at all ATMs and cash recyclers of Indian Bank on March 1, 2020, media reports had said.
In the RTI reply, the RBI had said that in FY17, 3,542.991 million notes of Rs 2,000 denominations were printed. However, FY18 saw a marked reduction in printing and only 111.507 million notes were produced, which further reduced to 46.690 million notes in FY19.
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It was in November 2016 that the Modi government demonetised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination notes. In a reply to a question in the parliament recently, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur in December said there is no proposal to withdraw Rs 2,000 denomination notes. “This is the real worry (about demonetisation) which has surfaced now. I think that you should not worry about it,” Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha in a reply to a question whether the government was planning to withdraw Rs 2,000 notes in future.
