Note ban: BofA-ML sees RBI surplus payout at Rs 50,000 cr

With almost 95 per cent of the scrapped notes finding their way to banks, the government may at best gain around Rs 50,000 crore only by way of additional surplus transfer from the Reserve Bank, which is far less than what was estimated earlier, says a brokerage report.

"How much can budget 2017 raise from the demonetisation drive? Rs 1,500 billion, we estimate, down from Rs 2,000 billion earlier," Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in a note today.

It also nearly halved its estimate of RBI dividend from black cash money not returned to banks to Rs 500 billion from Rs 950 billion, as the banks had collected over Rs 14 trillion out of the Rs 15.55 trillion in demonetised notes deposits by December 19, it said.

The dividend will be possible after the recent Ordinance that allows the RBI to cancel the liability in respect of demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes not returned to banks.

"The Ordinance presumably paves the way for a 'special dividend' to the fiscal," it said, adding additionally, the income disclosure scheme will net another Rs 1 trillion to the government.

The RBI's "special dividend" may be utilised for social sector schemes, it said.

Assuming Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sticks to the 3.5 per cent fiscal deficit target, he will "be just about able to maintain public capex" at budgeted levels after utilising the benefits of IDS for bank recapitalisation and seventh pay commission payout, it said.