RBI stops the production of ‘easy to counterfeit’ Rs 2000 notes

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stopped the production of Rs. 2000 notes. Not a single note has been printed in the last financial year.

This information is based on a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by The New Indian Express.

According to the RTI reply, RBI printed 3,542.991 million Rs 2,000 banknotes in 2016-17. This was reduced to 111.507 million notes in 2017-18, and in 2018-19, the RBI printed just 46.690 million such notes.

According to the RBI report, the share of Rs 2,000 notes in value term was 50.2 per cent in 2016/17, which later fell to 31.2 per cent in 2018/19.

The value of all Rs 2,000 notes issued in 2016/17 stood at Rs 6,57,100 crore; only Rs 15,500 crore worth fresh Rs 2,000 notes were added in 2017/18, taking the total to Rs 6,72,600 crore.

The annual report of the RBI says that, the counterfeit notes of ₹500 (new design) increased by 121% to 21,865 pieces during 2018-19. For Rs. 2,000 notes, it is nearly 22% increase in the detection of counterfeit at 21,847 pieces. Totally 12,728 counterfeit notes of Rs. 200 were detected in 2018-19 as compared to 79 in 20117-18.

NCRB’s latest annual report titled ‘Crime in India‘ reveals that in 2017 and 2018, law enforcing agencies seized Fake India Currency Note (FICN) worth Rs 46.06 crore. Of this, 56.31 per cent was in the form of fake Rs 2,000 notes.