Rs 200 notes to be in circulation soon; RBI places order for printing

Mumbai: Nearly eight months after demonetisation dealt a blow to consumer transactions in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will begin printing Rs 200 bills to fast-track the remonetisation process.

Sources told ANI that the decision to introduce Rs 200 notes was taken by the central bank after consultation with the Finance Ministry in March. Printing order for these notes have been placed.

RBI started introducing new high value notes in the banking system after nearly 86 per cent of the total currency in circulation was scrapped through demonetisation on November 8, 2016 - a massive anti-black money and anti-counterfeiting measure taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

As per the data obtained from a State Bank of India research, there were roughly 1,650 crore banknotes of Rs 500 denomination in circulation. The overnight withdrawal of these notes created a gaping void in the cycle of note circulation.

This move highlights the government’s efforts at pumping in lower denomination notes in the system, especially since low denomination notes dominate everyday transactions in India.

However, RBI has indicated in the past that it will not be printing new Rs 1000 currency notes that were also banned as part of the notes recall decision that sucked out over Rs 15 lakh crore worth of currency notes in circulation.