'Full demonetised amount to take time'

It is a difficult process as there are rooms filled with extinguished notes, said an RBI official

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to soon issue provisional data on how much of old notes were returned to banks from November 10 to December 30, in the wake of demonetisation.

Calculating the exact amount will take some time, a top government official said on Wednesday. "It is a difficult process. There are rooms filled with extinguished notes. RBI will have to collate those numbers. There is also the issue of double counting," the official said.

Business Standard had said that as of December 30, about Rs 14.5 crore of the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes had come back. That is about 94 per cent of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore put out of circulation on November 8.

The central bank had on January 5 said it was in the process of calculating the amount, with data release at an 'early date'.

On Wednesday, the government official also said the Centre would present Union Budget 2017-18 on February 1 but respect the Election Commission's (EC's) poll code of conduct, refraining from any announcements pertaining to the five states where elections are being held.

It had told the EC that its decision to advance the Budget by a month had been made clear in September. "Budget presentation on February 1 is a done deal. We will not make any specific announcement for poll-bound states," the official said. The states in question are Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab and Goa.

Opposition parties haved asked the EC to stop the Budget presentation. The first of the five states goes to polls on February 4.