New Delhi: It was on 8th November, 2016, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, leading to the scrapping of all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes. It was followed by the issuance of Rs 2,000 and new Rs 500 currency notes.
Six-and-a-half years later, in May 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes from circulation.
More than two years later, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said that while Rs 2,000 currency notes are no longer in circulation, they remain legal tender.
Malhotra made the clarification after several MPs questioned the status of Rs 2,000 banknotes during a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on the Indian economy’s growth, ANI reported.
As of July 1, Rs 2,000 denomination notes worth Rs 6,099 crore remain in circulation despite the RBI’s announcement of their withdrawal more than a year ago.
By December 2024, RBI reported that 98.08% of the Rs 2,000 notes in circulation had been returned. The total value of these notes had dropped from Rs 3.56 lakh crore on May 19, 2023, to Rs 6,839 crore as of November 29, 2024.
The RBI allowed the public to deposit or exchange these notes at any bank branch until October 7, 2023. Since October 9, 2024, the exchange of Rs 2000 notes has been restricted to 19 designated RBI Issue Offices across India — in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram.
Citizens can still send Rs 2,000 notes via India Post from any post office in the country to any RBI Issue Office and have the amount credited to their bank account.