RBI spent about Rs 5,000 cr spent on printing of new 500 notes

The surplus transfered from the RBI to the government has declined by Rs 35,217 crore in 2016 -17.

NEW DELHI: The government has informed the Lok Sabha that about Rs 5,000 crore was spent on printing of new Rs 500 currency notes post demonetisation.

As per the information provided by Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan in a written reply, as many as 1,695.7 crore pieces of Rs 500 denomination notes were printed till December 8.

The amount spent on production of Rs 500 notes was Rs 4,968.84 crore, he said.

The minister also informed that the RBI had printed 365.4 crore pieces of Rs 2,000 notes at a cost of about Rs 1,293.6 crore. About Rs 522.83 crore have been spent on printing of 178 crore pieces of Rs 200 notes.

The surplus transfered from the RBI to the government has declined by Rs 35,217 crore in 2016 -17 mainly on account of increase in expenditure on printing of the currency notes.

The government on November 8, 2016 announced to demonetise old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, which together accounted for about 86 per cent of the currency in circulation. About 99 per cent of the scrapped currency was returned to the RBI.

“Subject to future corrections, based on verification process, the estimated value of Specified Bank Notes (scrapped currency) received as on June 30, 2017 is Rs 15.28 lakh crore,” the minister said in reply to another question.

As part of its remonetisation exercise, the Reserve Bank came out new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 50. It also introduced notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 200.

PTI