New Delhi: The government has informed the Lok Sabha that about Rs5,000 crore was spent on printing of new Rs500 currency notes post demonetisation.
As per the information provided by minister of state for finance P. Radhakrishnan in a written reply, as many as 1,695.7 crore pieces of Rs500 denomination note were printed till 8 December. The amount spent on production of Rs500 notes was Rs4,968.84 crore, he said.
The minister also informed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) printed 365.4 crore pieces of Rs2,000 notes. The cost incurred is about Rs1,293.6 crore. Similarly, Rs522.83 crore have been spent on printing of 178 crore pieces of Rs200 notes.
“New design notes in the denomination of Rs 50, 200, 500 and 2,000 have been introduced after demonetisation,” the minister said. In another reply, he said the surplus transferred from the RBI to the government has declined by Rs35,217 crore in 2016 -17 mainly on account of increase in expenditure on printing of currency notes.
The RBI had transferred Rs65,876 crore as surplus to the government in 2015-16. The amount reduced to Rs30,659 crore in 2016-17. The government on 8 November 2016 announced to demonetise old Rs1,000 and Rs500 notes, which together accounted for about 86% of the currency in circulation.
About 99% of the scrapped currency was returned to the RBI. “Subject to future corrections, based on verification process, the estimated value of Specified Bank Notes (scrapped currency) received as on June 30, 2017 is Rs 15.28 lakh crore,” the minister said in reply to another question.
As part of its remonetisation exercise, the Reserve Bank came out new notes of Rs500 and Rs50. It also introduced notes of Rs2,000 and Rs200.