Quantity and value of notes printed by RBI more than years before demonetisation

The quantity and value of new notes being printed by the Reserve Bank of India has been increased in comparison to the notes printed in the years before the demonetisation.

As per the RBI’s latest annual report released on Thursday August 29, the total number of banknotes by Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt. Ltd (BRBNMPL) and Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) totalled to 2,919.1 crore pieces in 2018-19. This number is higher than the number of bank notes supplied by the two in the recent past, including 2016-17 in which demonetisation took place, The Indian Express reported.

BRBNMPL and SPMCIL are the two companies that print currency on behalf of RBI

Also, the total face of the new bank notes supplied in 2018 – 2091 was ₹7.26 lakh crore. It was higher than the levels during the pre-demonetisation years, whereas it was way below the ₹ 13.39 lakh crore for 2016-17.

According to a report in The Indian Express, the value of new notes supplied by BRBNMPL and SPMCIL grew by 16.1 per cent in 2018-19, more than the 11.2 per cent increase in India’s nominal GDP. This, notwithstanding the supply of ₹2,000 currency notes registering a drastic fall from 350.4 crore pieces in 2016-17 to 15.1 crore in 2017-18 and a mere 4.7 crore pieces in the last fiscal.

As per RBI annual report, there is a decline in cost of printing new currency notes. In the year 2016-17, RBI spent ₹7,965 crore on the printing of 2,904.3 crore currency notes. Whereas in 2018-19, the cost was ₹4,811 crore on a higher supply of 2,919.1 crore notes. The reason for this decline was because of less number of ₹2,000 denomination notes got printed and there was also a reduction in unit printing costs.

Replying to a question in Parliament on July 9, Anurag Singh Thakur, Union minister of state for finance said that the selling price of currency notes printed by BRBNMPL dipped from ₹4.18 per piece in 2017-18 to ₹3.53 in 2018-19 for ₹2,000 notes. A similar downward revision in the rates per piece took place from ₹2.39 to ₹2.13 for ₹500, from ₹2.24 to ₹2.15 for ₹200, from ₹1.50 to ₹1.34 for ₹100, from ₹0.83 to ₹0.82 for ₹50 denomination notes.