Large denomination currency not being withdrawn: RBI Governor

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday ruled out pulling out of large denomination currency notes from circulation, even as his deputy said that ensuring the right denomination mix is a constant dilemma.

Top Reserve Bank of India officials, who were speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Bank's central board in a coastal resort 50 kms from Panaji, also said that a fresh tamper proof series of currency notes were being worked on and could be issued soon.

Earlier, while responding to a media query as to whether large denomination currency bills, which critics have claimed could be used to store black money with relative ease, would be withdrawn from circulation by the RBI, Rajan said: "Your question was whether the current high denomination notes will be pulled out of circulation at any point. No. There is no discussion of that at this point".

Elaborating further, RBI's Deputy Governor R. Gandhi said that denomination mix was always under "constant review" and the process was plagued by dilemma.

"It is a constant dilemma between making it convenient to public to make ordinary payments -- for that the appropriate denomination should be there -- and parallelly we should also be worried, about that our currency notes of high denomination are not used for any unlawful activity. It's a balance which we have to make," he said.

Gandhi also said that Indian currency notes had never been forged in entirety.

"Whatever forged notes we have seen or analysed, they have not breached our security features. There is a constant endeavour from our side to test whether they have breached our security features or not. They have not," he said.

Gandhi also said that forged notes attached in every seizure by the law enforcement agencies across the country were examined by RBI officials.

"We have been monitoring once any seizure takes place. We make a comparison (about) what is the level of forgery that has taken place. Based on that, we try to improve our own security features," he said.

"We are already at it by bringing a new series of notes in consultation with the government. Work is going on. Hopefully down the line we'll have some improved security feature on our notes which will not be able to be copied or forged," he said.