Currency blues

With reference to ‘RBI may be holding back Rs 2,000 notes: SBI Report’ (December 21), if one truly believes this report, it is highly unimaginable to learn that the RBI has not released the high value notes worth Rs 2.46 lakh crore. It also reveals that the RBI may either be holding back Rs 2,000 notes or may have stopped printing high denomination currency. 

In all fairness, both the RBI and the government should urgently clarify the position and thereby put to rest all such reports. Perhaps, this issue gains more significance as the RBI had incurred huge expenses in getting  Rs 2,000 denomination notes printed on priority basis to meet the demand for high value currency in the wake of demonetisation. Moreover, the commercial banks had to spend huge amounts towards  recalibrating their ATMs for dispensing the newly designed notes.  

But if the RBI is actually holding back Rs 2,000 notes, then such a contrived move could obviously create an imminent shortage of the high value notes in circulation. The government may be tempted to hold back these notes so as to successfully achieve its over-ambitious target to digitise the Indian economy, though it was not one of the three primary objectives of its demonetisation idea. 

But one fails to comprehend the rationale behind such a huge financial outgo by both the RBI as well as the commercial banks on Rs 2,000 notes. The moot question now is: Was no proper home work done at that time? 

S Kumar | New Delhi

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S Kumar