No proposal to withdraw pink Rs 2,000 notes, says govt in Lok Sabha

The government on Friday said that there is no proposal to withdraw the Rs 2,000 denomination note. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced Rs 2,000 notes following the demonetisation of high-value Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in November 2016.  

Replying to a question on whether the government was considering the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes shortly, Minister of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishnan in the Lok Sabha said, "There is no such proposal." 

Specified Bank Notes (SBNs) were received by the RBI either directly or from bank branches or post offices through the currency chest mechanism and were subjected to verification for authentication and numeral accuracy, he said.

"The process has since been completed. The notes processed online in Currency Verification and Processing System (CVPS) have been destroyed," he said.

In another reply, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said public sector banks (PSBs) witnessed a period of aggressive lending from 2008 to 2014 where the gross advances increased from Rs 18.2 trillion (Rs 18.2 lakh crore) to Rs 52.16 trillion (Rs 52.16 lakh crore) as per RBI data. 

"Reasons for the spurt in stressed assets have been observed to be, inter-alia, due to aggressive lending practices, wilful default /loan frauds/corruption in some cases, and economic slowdown. Asset Quality Review (AQR) initiated in 2015 for clean and fully provisioned bank balance-sheets revealed high incidence of NPAs," he said. 

Stressed loans, not provided for earlier under flexibility given to restructured loans, were reclassified as NPAs and provided for, he said. 

PSBs initiated cleaning up by recognising NPAs and provided for expected losses, he said.

"As a result, while PSBs have reported aggregate operating profit of Rs 367.25 billion (Rs 36,725 crore) in the third quarter of FY 2017-18, due to provisioning of Rs 548.22 billion (Rs 54,822 crore) substantially on account of transparent recognition of NPAs by PSBs and consequent requirement of ageing provision, they have reported a net loss of Rs 180.98 billion (Rs 18,098 crore) in the said quarter," he said.