Rising Digital Payments One Of The Reasons Behind Rs 2,000 Notes Withdrawal: RBI
Bureau,Odishabarta
New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will withdraw Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes that were in circulation since 2016. The central bank mentioned several reasons that influenced its decision to withdraw the currency notes.
Citing data from a report titled ‘India Digital Payments Annual Report’, the RBI said the use of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and digital payments increased tremendously in the last few years. Payment modes like UPI, Credit, Debit cards, Mobile and Prepaid cards processed 87.92 billion transactions worth Rs 14.92 lakh crore in 2022 alone.
The Reserve Bank of India said the decision is a part of its ‘Clean Note Policy’ to ensure the availability of high-quality bank notes to people. The majority of the Rs 2,000 denomination was issued before March 2017 and “reached its estimated life-span of four-five years”, the RBI said.
About 89 per cent of the Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes were issued before March 2017 and are at the end of their estimated lifespan of four-five years. The total value of these banknotes in circulation declined from ₹ 6.73 lakh crore at its peak of March 31, 2018 (37.3 per cent of notes in circulation) to ₹ 3.62 lakh crore constituting only 10.8 per cent of notes in circulation on March 31, 2023,” the RBI said.
The decision also aims to rationalise the currency structure and ensure the availability of lower denominations in the market.
Terming it as a usual practice adopted by the RBI, the central bank said a similar decision was undertaken for the withdrawal of notes from circulation in 2013-2014. In January 2014, the RBI completely withdrew all currency notes issued before 2005.
“Demonetization Comes Back To Haunt Nation”: Oppositions Slams Centre Over Withdrawal Of Rs 2,000 Notes
The Congress on Friday criticized the Prime Minister for the RBI’s decision to remove Rs 2,000 currency notes from circulation.
They alleged that this action was in line with his tendency to act impulsively without proper consideration, which is characteristic of his self-proclaimed status as a world leader.
A member of the ruling party commented that the current situation could lead to another catastrophic event similar to the demonetisation exercise of November 8, 2016, where the government invalidated all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes.
Slamming PM Modi, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh stated: “Typical of our self-styled Vishwaguru. First Act, Second Think (FAST). 2000 rupee notes introduced with such fanfare after that singularly disastrous ‘Tughlaqi firman’ of Nov 8 2016 are now being withdrawn.”
Congress MP Manickam Tagore tweeted, “Second Demo disaster starts .. M = Madness.”
Taking to Twitter, Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera stated: “The ghost of 8th nov 2016 has come back to haunt the nation once again. The greatly propagated move of demonetisation continues to be a monumental disaster for this nation. The PM sermoned the nation on the benefits of the new 2000 notes, today when the printing is stopped what happened to all those promises?”
Former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram tweeted: “As expected, the government/RBI have withdrawn the Rs 2000 note and given time until September 30 to exchange the notes. The Rs 2000 note is hardly a popular medium of exchange. We said this in November 2016 and we have been proved correct The Rs 2000 note was a band-aid to cover up the foolish decision of demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes which were popular and widely exchanged currencies.”
Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj stated: “This whole concept of starting the circulation, stopping the circulation of notes, or issuing of new notes, was started by PM Modi and the economy suffered due to this… I don’t know what will be the pros and cons of this step but I hope the decision was taken by the experts.”
Source;PNS
