Currency pain to stay: It will take around 6 months to replenish Rs 500 notes

November 17, 2016 23:48

Will new notes which replace the demonetised currency find itself in circulation soon? Unlikely, if the capacity of all the currency printing presses in the country is taken into account.

The latest calculation, based on capacities of the currency printing presses, shows that replenishment would take around six months.

This is particularly true for the new Rs 500 notes, whose printing, presumably, started after November 10. Till those are replenished in adequate numbers, the "currency pain" would not go away since Rs 2,000 notes are difficult to exchange for lower denominations.

New information gleaned from public sources show that the government may be too optimistic in claiming that "adequate amount" of money would soon be in circulation.

That's because of the limited capacity of the printing presses in the country for such a sudden, huge job.

The total capacity of the presses in the country would be 26.66 billion notes in two shifts. If all three shifts run, as the government says is happening now, the four presses would be able to print 40 billion notes a year, irrespective of the denomination.

Now, according to the government, the total money in circulation -- before Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes were declared illegal -- was Rs. 17.54 lakh crore or Rs. 17,540 billion. Of this, 45 per cent was in Rs. 500 denomination -- equivalent to Rs. 7.89 lakh crore or Rs. 7,890 billion and 39 per cent in Rs. 1,000 notes amounting to Rs. 6.84 lakh crore or Rs. 6,840 billion.

In other words, there were 15.78 billion notes of Rs. 500 denomination in circulation and 6.84 billion notes of Rs. 1,000.

But if they are going to print Rs 2,000 notes equivalent to value of the Rs 1,000 notes declared illegal, that is, worth Rs 6.84 lakh crore, they would have to print only half, or 3.42 billion notes.

If the printing started in early September, as has been claimed by some printing press officials, they would need only a little over two months to meet the full requirement, even at 50 per cent capacity. In other words, they should have printed all the replacement needs of Rs 2,000 notes till now.

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