The Finance Ministry on Tuesday ruled out a re-introduction of the Rs 1,000 currency bills amid media reports which said that these notes will soon make a comeback in a new avatar.
"There is no proposal to reintroduce Rs 1,000 note," said Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg in a tweet.
The government had announced the withdrawal of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on 8 November 2016, with an aim to check black money, counterfeit notes and terror financing.
A DNA report had on Monday cited sources who said that the printing of the new Rs 1,000 notes – coming with extra security features – was going to start soon and they could be out by December.
A source was quoted by DNA as saying:
The printing presses at Mysore and Salboni are getting ready to print the brand-new Rs 1,000 notes which will have enhanced security features..
The re-introduction of the Rs 1,000 note, the report states, would help ease the transaction process, as a huge gap currently exists between the Rs 500 and the Rs 2,000 notes.
These developments come days after the new Rs 200 note was introduced, along with Rs 50 currency bills having a new look.
The RBI has already announced that it would be ramping up the supply of Rs 200 notes.
The optimal system of denominations of currency (coins and notes), the RBI had said, is one that would minimise the number of denominations and concurrently increase the probability of proffering exact change.
"So, what should be the optimal mix of currency denominations? Many countries have opted to use a near variation of the Renard Series, that is, 1:2 or 1:2.5 ratio between adjacent denominations of currency, which means that the denomination should be twice or two and half times of its preceding denomination," the central bank had said.
Such a ratio allows exchange of value ordinarily in a maximum of three denominations, it added.
Last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the government was not considering banning Rs 2,000 notes.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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