RBI's note counting will be mechanised from next year

Under attack for inordinate delay in counting demonetised notes, the Reserve Bank of India will put in place a mechanised system by next year that will enable the central bank to have a real time view of balances in the currency chests across the banks and facilitate its management.

This is a shift away from the current system of manual handling and checking, sources close to the development told DH.

Currently, the pilot run of the new module is underway at RBI's offices.

The RBI in its annual report last week had also noted that the new system will have linkage with note printing press and will be laced with provision to track currency in transit. The new model will be launched in 2018-19.

“The next-generation currency management portal version 2.0 is under development, and is expected to be launched with the currency management functionalities during 2018-19. The currency management and other services running on the existing portal will be migrated to the new portal in phases,” the RBI said.

The proposed automation comes after the central bank was criticised for the delay in counting of the demonetised high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. These currency notes were declared illegal in November 2016 but only recently, after nearly two years, the RBI could come with the final counting report saying that 15.31 lakh crore of 15.41 lakh demonetised notes had come back to the system.

In these two years, the central bank came under attack from all quarter with the Opposition Congress even mocking the RBI saying it should take the help from “hundi” collectors at the Tirupati temple to count demonetised notes faster.

The department of currency management of RBI has also initiated the process of setting up a laboratory for bank note production in Mumbai to check for quality of notes.