Urjit Patel:Counting of demonetized notes deposits still in process

19 Jul 2017 11:37 AM | General

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Last week, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel appeared before a Parliamentary panel for the second time and is understood to have said, the deposited banned notes are still being counted and therefore he was not in a position to give a figure of the scrapped currency, back in the system.

If you remember, in January too, the RBI governor had told the Parliamentary panel that he would submit a statement on the amount of money that came back into the system after demonetisation.

Just after a month of the demonetization announcement, the RBI made an announcement saying banking system has received Rs 12.44 lakh crore in invalidated high-value notes until 10 December.

It took 32 days for the RBI to compute the figure of Rs 12.44 lakh crore or about 81 per cent of the total amount of currency demonetised. Since December 10, over 200 days have passed. And, the RBI is still unable to finish counting of the remaining Rs 3 lakh crore.

In a meeting with a Parliamentary panel last week, RBI Governor Urjit Patel repeated what he has been saying for the last seven months.

The RBI is still counting notes and has even ordered new machines to speed up the process. 'It is not a convincing explanation' not just for the parliamentary panel but also to a billion people who were subjected to a highly disruptive economic experiment.

The RBI couldn't stop the fake currency from entering into the banking system through formal channels during the demonetisation period and it is still finding ways to make its accounts. It may be recalled that though the deadline for public to deposit/exchange old notes ended on 30 December, the window for NRIs and certain categories and with Rs 6,000-Rs 8,000 crores of deposits in old currency would have come from cooperative banks, the RBI's work will be even more time-taking going by what the governor says.

However, as the RBI's financial year nearing it has to show the numbers of demonetised in August ( The Central bank follows a financial year of July to June, not April to March).