Finally, here we are at the final phase of re-monetisation. Just before the enactment of GST on 1st of July, there is some more good news for everyone. The Central Bank has begun printing of 200 rupee notes to ease customer transactions. These 200 rupee notes are printed in a government facility after the RBI requested an order regarding the bills.
"For day-to-day transaction purposes, the introduction of 200 rupee notes will add to ease of operations," said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economist at the SBI Group. The introduction of 200 rupee notes will come as a relief to those affected by demonetisation scheme which aimed at replacing the previous 500 and 1000 rupee notes with new ones, which in turn helped more people to come under the tax system as well as remove counterfeit notes from the monetary system of the 3rd largest Asian economy.
The 200 rupee introduction was approved by the government as it felt that this would help citizens to transact easily. Before November 8, 1650 crore pieces of 500 rupee notes were there. The sudden removal of them made a large gap in the value of notes in circulation. A minor part was filled by the 2000 denominations while the larger one by the 500 ones. The part missing will be efficiently covered by the 200 rupee notes. Moreover, these lower denomination notes aid government in realigning the currency mix in the economy.
Around 86% of the total currency in circulation was removed by demonetisation which values to 17.9 lakh crore. As of June 9, still the levels are 18.4% lower than the pre November 8 levels.
The new 200 rupee notes will carry advanced security features to prevent counterfeiting, said a source aware of the printing schedule. These notes are going through several quality and security checks at the government's press unit at Horshangabad in Madhya Pradesh.
Currently, the printing of currency notes is underway in either the government run printing units of Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd or at printing presses in Mysore in Karnataka and Salboni in West Bengal which are managed by RBI owned Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Ltd.