The Reserve Bank of India said that £152.8 billion, or 99 per cent of the £154.4 billion demonetised Rs 500 and 1,000 currency notes on November 8, last year, has been deposited with banks. In its annual report, the bank said that the number of returned notes does not include the money collected by district central cooperative banks and from notes deposited by citizens and financial institutions in Nepal.
The Apex Bank has been tentative in releasing data on the currency received, stating that the number is only an estimation. It said some of the returned money is still lying uncounted in currency chests. “Till such time these notes are processed by the RBI for their numerical accuracy and authenticity, only an estimation of specified banknotes received back is possible,” it said. The disclosure garnered flak for the government. Making matters worse, RBI's printing costs have more than doubled to £796.5 million in 2016-17 from £342.1 million in the previous year and its interest income was hit due to demonetisation.
The move has seemingly drained the central bank's finances. RBI's interest income dropped 10 per cent to £6.60 billion from £7.35 billion in the previous year. It said income from domestic sources fell 17 per cent to £4.32 billion as it had to pay out more interest on the money that it mopped up from banks as part of the liquidity management post demonetisation. Resultantly, RBI's dividend to the government for 2016-17 halved to £3.06 billion from £6.58 billion in the previous year.
RBI said 370,000 pieces of Rs 500 fake notes were detected and in the case of Rs 1000 currency notes 256,000 pieces were detected. It added that while the whole exercise may not have resulted in black money being destroyed in the form of unreturned notes, it may help in tracing unaccounted wealth. The report read, “The trail of deposits of specified bank notes into bank accounts may provide valuable information to the revenue authorities in tracing unaccounted money.”
