RBI starts printing Rs 200 notes to ease consumer transactions

Mumbai: Nearly seven months after demonestisation slowed down consumer transactions in the country, the Reserve Bank of India has begun printing bills of Rs 200 to speed up the re-monetisation process.

The Rs 200 notes are being printed in a government-owned facility to help smoothen consumer transactions, reported Economic Times.

"For day-to-day transaction purposes, the introduction of 200 rupee notes will add to the ease of operations," said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economist at the SBI Group.

A couple of months back, the central bank had passed the proposal to issue Rs 200 banknotes. RBI started introducing new high value notes in the banking system after over 86 per cent of the total currency in circulation was scrapped through demonetisation on November, 2016 - a massive anti-black money and anti-counterfeiting measure taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

According to data obtained from a State Bank of India research, before November 8, there were roughly 1,650 crore banknotes of Rs 500 denomination. The overnight removal of these notes created a void in the circulation of notes in the system.

"A minor part of that has been replenished by 2000 rupee notes and a larger part by the new 500 rupee notes, though not in full," said Ghosh. "The introduction of 200 rupee notes will replenish the missing middle, triggered by the withdrawal of the old series of 500 rupee notes,” he added.

The printing of Rs 200 notes highlights the government’s efforts at pumping in lower denomination notes in the system.