Over 99% of devalued currency notes were returned within months of demonetisation, according to Reserve Bank of India's annual report 2017-18. Though intended to curb the flow of black money, 99.3% of the devalued ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were returned -- which indicates that only 0.7% of the money remains unaccounted.
Currency levels have also shown the biggest percentage rise (37%) since 2009-10. "Currency in circulation increased by around ₹4.9 trillion," said the report. While currency in circulation has been increasing, "the use of digital payments, which had surged to a peak in December 2016 in the aftermath of demonetisation fell back to the elevated post-demonetisation trend before rising in recent months," according to the report.
The report also gave the split of currency notes and their values. There are 102,395 million bank notes of various denominations in circulation, amounting to a total value of ₹18,037 billion. The below visualistion plots the number of notes against the cumulative value of that note. The colour indicates the number of notes of that currency as a percentage of the total number of notes and the size of the circle indicates percentage value of that denomination in the total value. For example, 15% of total notes in circulation are ₹500s and they account for 42% of the total value of currency in circulation.
The report also pointed out that the number of fake notes detected has been increasing exponentially. For instance, detected fake ₹50 notes showed a 154% increase in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17. The figures are even worse for the new currency notes. ₹2,000 notes showed a spike of 2,710% compared to last year, while the number of new ₹500 fake notes jumped by 4871%. The following visualisation shows the increase in detection of fake currency notes of major denominations.
Published - August 29, 2018 07:18 pm IST
