Curious case of new Rs 500 notes worth Rs 88,000 crore not reaching RBI from mints
By Vipin Vijayan | First Published Jun 17, 2023, 7:19 PM ISTAn RTI query has come up with the startling revelation of missing more than Rs 88,000 crore worth of Rs 500 notes that the Reserve Bank of India should have in its coffers, an English newspaper has reported.
A media outlet has reported a startling revelation from an RTI query, which indicates that over Rs 88,000 crore worth of Rs 500 notes are missing from the Reserve Bank of India's reserves.
According to the Free Press Journal report, activist Manoranjan Roy's RTI revealed that the government mints in Bengaluru, Nashik, and Dewas printed 881.065 crore notes of Rs 500 denomination. However, the RBI received only 726 crore notes, indicating a shortfall of 155.065 crore pieces.
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In response to a previous RTI, the RBI confirmed not receiving 210 million pieces of Rs 500 currency notes printed by the Nashik Mint between April 2015 and March 2016.
The three printing presses responsible for printing currency notes in India are the Currency Note Press in Nashik, Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (P) Limited in Bengaluru, and the Bank Note Press in Dewas.
The Nashik Mint, in its response to the RTI, stated that it supplied 166.20 crore notes of Rs 500 to the Reserve Bank in 2016-17. Similarly, the Bengaluru Mint supplied 519.565 crore notes, and the Dewas Mint supplied 195.30 crore notes during the same period.
Based on the RTI data, the Nashik Mint printed 37,54,50,000 notes of the new Rs 500 design from April 2015 to December 2016, while the Reserve Bank's records show 34,50,00,000 notes. Out of the 176.065 crore missing notes, 21 crore were printed at the Nashik Mint between April 2015 and March 2016, when Raghuram Rajan served as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
The RTI activist has sent these figures to the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau and Enforcement Directorate, demanding an inquiry into the matter.
The RBI has not yet officially responded to these findings. However, this discrepancy in currency numbers is not the first instance. Interestingly, the same RTI activist filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court in 2015, claiming a mismatch between the figures presented by printing presses and the Reserve Bank of India from 2000 to 2011.
During that period, the printing presses stated that 19,45,40,00,000 pieces of Rs 500 denomination were sent to the RBI, while the RBI reported receiving only 18,98,46,84,000 pieces, resulting in a shortfall of 46,93,16,000 pieces or Rs 23,465 crore.
Additionally, the printing presses sent 4,44,13,00,000 pieces of Rs 1,000 denomination, but the RBI claimed to have received 4,45,30,00,000 pieces, resulting in an excess of 1,17,00,000 pieces or Rs 1,170 crore.
The petition filed in 2016 was dismissed as frivolous by the court on August 23. However, three months later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations on November 8, 2016.
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