RBI reduces printing of 2,000 rupee notes: Source

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stopped placing new orders for printing Rs 2,000 currency notes, indications are that the government is moving slow on the high denominations notes and may phase them out in due course amid fears that they are increasingly becoming hoarders' paradise.

Though the government has maintained that it is not going to scrap these notes altogether, RBI had last year stopped giving new orders for printing of Rs 2,000 notes, its data on currency in circulation revealed in November.

The Rs 2,000 notes were introduced when the demonetisation move of 2016 scrapped Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.

According to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, there is no plan to ban the highest denomination currency notes, which were introduced to tackle the acute shortage of money in the system post demonetisation.

However, concerns have been raised that Rs 2,000 notes are helping proliferate black money following which RBI had squeezed their supply last year.

According to the RBI data, there were 3,285 million pieces of Rs 2,000 notes in circulation at end-March 2017. A year after (on March 31, 2018), there was only a marginal increase in the number at 3,363 million pieces.

A government official said that the move is not new and the government had announced at the time of its introduction that its printing will be brought down going forward.

Former Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das had said that Rs 2,000 notes would have a limited printing when his attention was drawn that they might raise hoarding and black money fears.