With annual report of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) now finally making it clear that Rs 15.28 lakh crore worth demonetised currency out of total Rs 15.44 lakh crore i.e. about 99-percent coming back to banks by June 30, 2017, it seems that RBI and Central Bank backed out from accepting demonetised currency at all RBI offices till March 31, 2017 in fear of more than circulated demonetised currency coming back, which is not theoretically possible. However, with such unbelievable figure now officially disclosed, an enquiry becomes necessary if some duplicate series of currency were printed during earlier UPA regime.
Also, in a country like India incidents of old-aged people dying leaving large amount of undiscoverable currency in secret places are quite common. Many of notes in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 in last 30 years when these notes were first time issued in the year 1987 must have been destroyed with garment-wash, fire-accidents and other such incidents. People having denied opportunity to deposit demonetised currency till March 31, 2017 at RBI offices still have huge amounts in old notes. Large chunks of demonetised currency are still being discovered at various places by government-agencies.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
