As many as 7,62,072 pieces of counterfeit notes were detected in the banking system last fiscal, a 20.4 per cent increase over the previous year, the Reserve Bank said today.
During 2015-16, 6.32 lakh pieces of fake currency notes had been detected, the central bank said in its annual report for 2016-17.
It also said that barring Rs 100, the detection of counterfeit notes increased across denominations -- notably, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 -- during the last fiscal.
In the report, the RBI said that coincident with the announcement of the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, 2016, it launched a nation-wide exercise to estimate the density of fake Indian currency notes (FICNs) detected during the counting and verification of notes.
"The result showed the rate of FICN detected per million pieces of notes processed at the CC (currency chest) level at 7.1 pieces for Rs 500 denomination and 19.1 pieces for Rs 1,000 denomination, which were higher than the rate of detection at the Reserve Bank," it added.
At the RBI's currency verification and processing system, in 2015-16, there were 2.4 pieces of FICNs of Rs 500 denomination and 5.8 pieces of Rs 1,000 for every million pieces notes processed; which rose to 5.5 pieces and 12.4 pieces, respectively, during the post-demonetisation period.