The Reserve Bank of India is still in the process of reconciling the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes to obviate any errors, finance minster Arun Jaitley has said.
In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Jaitley said the central bank is still completing the counting of specified bank notes (SBNs).
“SBNs received are being reconciled to obviate reporting errors and processed for verifying numerical accuracy and authenticity through machines. The progress is being closely monitored,” he stated.
The government demonetised high denomination notes on November 8, 2016.
Steps have been taken to augment RBI’s machine processing capacity and efforts are afoot to complete the counting of notes “as soon as possible,” FM said. Demonetisation has resulted in “several gains” and the income tax department between November 9 and January 10 has made more than 1,100 searches and surveys, FM said.
“These actions have led to the seizure of valuables of more than Rs 610 crore which included cash of Rs 513 crore. Seizure of cash in new currency notes was about Rs 110 crore. The undisclosed income detected in these actions was more than Rs 5,400 crore,” Jaitley said.
Jaitley stated digital transactions have increased to Rs 123.46 crore in December 2016 from Rs 71.27 crore in October 2016. However, it has come down to Rs 111.45 crore during May 2017.
“Fake Indian currency note was dealt a heavy crippling blow by demonetisation. No high quality counterfeit new currency notes have been seized by any agency post demonetisation,” he said.
He said a large amount of notes not part of formal financial system have been deposited with the banks.
