Have you noticed that of late, ATMs rarely dispense Rs 2,000 currency notes. If you have, then you are not the only one. Some Parliament members recently raised questions about banks being instructed to not disburse Rs 2,000 notes
Responding in the Lok Sabha to whether the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has put restrictions on banks to disburse currency notes of Rs 2,000 through ATMs, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on March 20 that no such instructions have been given to banks
Banks have not been instructed to fill or not fill Rs 2,000 notes in bank ATMs. “Banks make their own assessment of amount and denominational requirement for ATMs on the basis of past usage, consumer requirement, seasonal trend, etc,” said FM Sitharaman
On March 21, Rajya Sabha MP Rajmani Patel asked whether the RBI is introducing a new design of banknotes in the denomination of Rs 2,000 as part of Mahatma Gandhi (New) series
In a written reply to the query about new Rs 2,000 notes, Pankaj Chaudhary, Union Minister of State for Finance, said that there is no such plan as the RBI has already introduced a new design of Rs 2,000 notes in 2016
On March 14, the Centre had to respond to a query on whether it was planning to discontinue the Rs 2,000 note. Responding to this, MoS Finance said that there is no plan to discontinue Rs 2,000 notes
According to Pankaj Chaudhary, Rs 2,000 notes have not been printed from 2019-20 onwards. “Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes have not been printed from the year 2019-20 onwards. The currency in circulation of various denominations is assessed to be adequate," said Chaudhary
Responding to whether about Rs 9.21 lakh crores worth of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denominations issued after demonetization, have gone out of circulation, FM Nirmala Sitharaman said, “No such information or data is available."
As per RBI's Annual reports, the circulation of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes increased from Rs 9.512 lakh crore as of March 2017-end to Rs 27.057 lakh crore by end of March 2022
The Rs 2,000 note is the highest denomination currency in India. RBI had introduced the new Rs 2,000 note after the Modi government announced demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8, 2016