₹200 note to be introduced next month

The Reserve Bank of India has stepped up production of smaller currency bills, which include a brand new ₹200 note, media reports say.

The ₹200 note is being printed in RBI’s Mysore Press and will be in circulation from the next month, according to an official quoted in the report. Nearly a billion ₹200 notes will hit the circulation next month, according to a Livemint report.

Sources at RBI and HDFC Bank, who didn’t want to be identified, confirmed that the ₹200 note will be in circulation from August.

However, they denied any knowledge on whether printing of the ₹2,000 rupee has stopped.

“There will be a 200-rupee note in circulation from next month. But we don’t know if the 2,000-rupee note is no longer being printed,” sources at RBI said.

“We believe the 2,000-rupee note is still being printed,” sources at HDFC Bank said.

According to the Livemint report which cited unnamed officials, no more 2,000-rupee notes are likely to be printed during the current financial year.

The Livemint article further informed that nearly 3.7 billion 2,000-rupee bills, totalling ₹7.4 trillion, were put in circulation since the government announced the demonetisation drive in November, to compensate for 6.3 billion ₹1,000 bills that had been phased out.

According to the report, around 14 billion new 500-rupee bills, equivalent to ₹7.85 trillion, have been printed so far, to make up for nearly 15.7 billion old 500-rupee bills that were taken out of circulation. Out of the total new bills that have been in circulation since November 8, 90 per cent are 500-rupee ones, according to the report.

The report quoted State Bank of India’s Deputy Managing Director Neeraj Vyas as saying that the cash crunch that existed until two months back had been eased with the introduction of new 500-rupee notes.

The report cited data by RBI that showed currency in circulation, as of July 14, stood at ₹15.22 trillion, which was 86 per cent of the ₹17.7 trillion that was in circulation on November 4.