Demonetised notes being checked by sophisticated currency verification units: RBI

The Reserve Bank of India used sophisticated Currency Verification and Processing (CVPS) machines for checking the accuracy or the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

Quoting a Right To Information (RTI) reply, PTI had earlier reported that RBI was not using machines for counting Specified Bank Notes (SBNs).

"These machines are way superior to the note counting machines. With a view to augmenting processing capacity, the RBI is using the available machines in two shifts and has been using some machines temporarily drawn from commercial banks after suitable modifications. The RBI is also exploring other options to augment processing capacity even further," the central bank said in a statement.

An official also clarified that the counting machines are typically very small and are mostly used in branches of commercial banks for smaller number of notes.

In reply to the RTI application, the central bank had also refused to give the total number of personnel deployed for counting of the scrapped notes, saying compiling the information would "disproportionately divert" its resources.

In its annual report for 2016-17 released on August 30, the RBI had said Rs 15.28 lakh crore, or 99 per cent of the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, have returned to the banking system.

The central bank, in the annual report, which was for the year ended June 30, 2017, said only Rs 16,050 crore out of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore in the old high denomination notes have not returned.

As on November 8, 2016, when the note ban was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there were 1,716.5 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 685.8 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation, totalling Rs 15.44 lakh crore, it had said.

RBI is exploring other options to further augment the processing capacity.

PTI