<!– /11440465/Dna_Article_Middle_300x250_BTF –>With a surge in demand for smaller denomination notes, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has put soiled notes—mainly of Rs 100 and lower denominations—back into the system, along with a fresh supply of Rs 10 coins.According to the available data, as on March 2016, RBI had in its possession 16,368 million pieces of soiled notes, a substantial portion of which is back in circulation. These are notes that are collected by the banks from the customers as part of replacing soiled and torn notes. Once handed back to the RBI, the notes are examined by a committee and then destroyed.A senior official from the Punjab National Bank said, “We have received soiled notes and have started distributing it. Since there is a currency crunch, whatever supplies we are getting are being made use of. The soiled notes are not mutilated ones, but worn out or partially torn.”It’s estimated that these soiled notes will be in circulation for a couple of months till banks get enough supply of new currency. “Even if we make the printing presses work overtime, it may take a few months to bring the situation back to normalcy since we have sucked out 84 per cent of our currency,” said the executive director of a south-based private sector bank.Meanwhile, a RBI release said that the new coins to be distributed will come with distinctive features reflecting India’s socio-economic-cultural ethos.Fake notes in playAccording to a senior banker, as many as 6,32,926 pieces of counterfeit notes were detected in the banking system during the last fiscal. Of this 95 per cent were detected by commercial banks.While 2,21,447 pieces of fake Rs 100 notes were confiscated by the banks, 2,61,695 pieces of Rs 500 notes were detected. In Rs 1,000 denomination, 1,43,099 pieces were detected.During 2015-16, the RBI had printed 21.2 billion pieces, while it was 23.6 billion pieces the previous fiscal. In value terms, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes together accounted for 86.4 per cent of the currency in circulation, but going by volume, Rs 10 and Rs 100 bank notes constituted 53 per cent of the total currency in circulation.The value of the Rs 1,000 notes was Rs 6,32,600 crore from 6,326 million pieces in circulation and the value of the Rs 500 notes was Rs 7,65,400 crore from 15,707 million notes in circulation, according to RBI data.Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBI which runs two banknote printing presses in Mysore and Salboni, produced 14,714 million pieces of banknotes of different denominations as against its annual target of 15,700 million pieces in 2015-16.There are four currency presses – one each in Nashik (in Maharashtra), Dewas, (Madhya Pradesh), Salboni (West Bengal and Mysuru (Karnataka). The Nashik and the Dewas presses are owned by Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd.
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