Only 89 million ₹1,000 banknotes were never returned after the demonetisation exercise, data released in the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report showed.
There were 6,326 million pieces of ₹1,000 in circulation as on March-end 2016. In 2016-2017, another 925 million pieces were supplied in the system by the printing presses. This effectively means only 1.2% of the ₹1,000 notes were not returned to banks.
In November last, the government decided to withdraw ₹1,000 and ₹500 to ''curb black money''.
There were 3,285 million pieces of ₹2000 in the system as on March 2017. This constituted 50.2%, in terms of value, of total currency in circulation.
The number of ₹500 that were not returned could not be deduced from the data. But 7,260 million pieces of ₹500 were printed by the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited and Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL).
The RBI has detected 2,56,324 pieces of ₹1000 and 638 pieces of ₹2000 as counterfeit. This is very small proportion of total notes, 0.0035% and 1.94% respectively.
The data further shows that 3,17, 567 pieces of old ₹500 were detected as counterfeit notes, while only 199 conterfeit pieces of the new ₹500 were detected.
Demonetisation a case of organised loot and legalised plunder, says Manmohan
