NASHIK: Currency Note Press (
CNP),
Nashik will increase printing of bank notes from existing 10 million to 20 million pieces per day from the first week of May, a majority of which will be 500-rupee notes.
TOI had reported in its edition on April 18 that 500-rupee notes were not being printed at CNP since November as it had not received fresh orders from RBI. CNP is a unit of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (
SPMCIL), However, with cash crunch being reported from several states, the Centre said the printing of 500-rupee notes would be stepped up five-fold, to around Rs 2,500 crore a day, at its various currency printing facilities.
“We now have instructions to increase the production. We have just started printing 500-rupee notes. It takes a couple of weeks to complete all the printing stages once the printing of new currency starts,” sources in CNP said. “The cycle will be completed by April-end and regular production will begin from the first week of May. The notes will, then, be ready for circulation. We will print around 9 to 12 million pieces of Rs 500 notes per day,” they added.
At present, the press is printing currency notes having denominations of Rs 10 and Rs 50 only. It stopped printing Rs 100 and Rs 20 denominations from April 1 as new notes of these denominations are to be printed and CNP, Nashik is waiting for their design from RBI. Moreover, printing of 200-rupee notes has been stopped since April 1 as RBI has given printing order of this note to CNP, Dewas (MP).
As a result, the daily production at CNP, Nashik declined to 10 million pieces a day from April 1. Sources said they now plan to print 19 to 20 million pieces a day from May. “The RBI has set a target of printing 6,000 million pieces of currency notes in this fiscal. Of these, target for printing Rs 500 notes is 1,000 million pieces. The other denominations to be printed are of Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20 and Rs 10,” sources added.