The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in August 2020 said that it did not print any ` 2,000 currency notes in 2019-20. The number of ` 2,000 notes in circulation, has gradually come down from 33,632 lakh pieces at end-March 2018 to 32,910 lakh pieces at end-March 2019 and further to 27,398 lakh pieces at end-March 2020. Moreover, ` 2,000 denomination notes constituted 2.4 per cent of the total volume of notes at end-March 2020, down from 3 per cent at end-March 2019 and 3.3 per cent at end-March 2018. In value terms also, the share came down to 22.6 per cent at end-March 2020, from 31.2 per at end-March 2019 and 37.3 per cent at the end-March 2018.
However, the circulation of currency notes of denomination of ` 500 and ` 200 has gone up substantially, both in terms of volume and value over the three years, beginning 2018. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown affected the supply of notes.
The RBI also revealed that a total of 2,96,695 pieces of counterfeit notes were detected during the previous financial year. The number of counterfeit notes of ` 2,000 detected was 17,020 pieces during the last fiscal, down from 21,847 in 2018-19.
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