PROPOSAL TO STOP CIRCULATION OF ₹2,000 CURRENCY NOTES? GOVT RESPONDS!

There is no proposal to stop the circulation of ₹2,000 currency notes, Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, said in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

His statement came as response to a question on whether the Government is considering the idea of halting the circulation of ₹2,000 notes in phased manner.

Introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in November 2016 after demonetization of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, ₹2,000 notes account for about one-third of currency in circulation.

Citing the Annual Report of the RBI, the Minister further said that the share of value of ₹2,000 denomination banknotes in circulation (₹6,582 billion) to the value of total notes in circulation (₹21, 109 billion) was 31.18% as on 31.03.2019.

An analysis of search cases conducted by the Income Tax Department (ITD) in the last three Financial Years reveal that there is a declining trend in the seizure of unaccounted cash in denomination of ₹2,000 notes.

Meanwhile, Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has advocated replacing ₹2,000 notes with smaller currency notes saying that the higher value currency is not much used for transaction and is less in circulation.