New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today announced that it will withdraw ₹2000 denomination bank notes from circulation, and asked people to exchange or deposit these notes in their bank accounts by September 30, 2023. They will continue as legal tender, the RBI said.
The upper limit to deposit or exchange ₹2000 notes till September 30, 2023, is Rs. 20,000 at a time. “In order to ensure operational convenience and to avoid disruption of regular activities of bank branches, exchange of ₹2,000 banknotes into banknotes of other denominations can be made up to a limit of ₹20,000 at a time at any bank starting from May 23, 2023,” the RBI said.
The central bank’s 19 regional offices and other banks will start taking ₹2,000 notes for exchange with lower denomination ones from May 23, 2023. In a circular, the RBI has directed all banks to stop issuing ₹2,000 notes with immediate effect.
The RBI said that the ₹2000 notes were not commonly used for transactions. “About 89 per cent of the ₹2,000 denomination banknotes were issued prior to 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. It added that the objective of introducing ₹2,000 banknotes was met once banknotes in other denominations became available in adequate quantities. “Therefore, the printing of ₹2000 banknotes was stopped in 2018- 19,” the RBI said in a statement.
It may be recalled that the RBI started printing the ₹2,000 notes in November 2016 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped high-value ₹1,000 and ₹500 notes overnight.
The RBI had undertaken a similar withdrawal of notes from circulation in 2013-2014 also.
– global bihari bureau
