No decision to discontinue printing of Rs 2000 note: FinMin

However, the note printing presses resumed production in a phased manner, as per the guidelines issued by Central/State Government, he added. The production activities at Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited (BRBNMPL) presses were suspended from March 23, 2020, to May 3, 2020.

The Finance Ministry on Saturday informed the Lok Sabha that no decision has been taken to discontinue the printing of Rs 2,000 denomination currency notes. In a written reply, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur said printing of banknotes of a particular denomination is decided by the government in consultation with the RBI to maintain the desired denomination mix for facilitating transactional demand of the public. During the year 2019-20 and 2020-21, no indent was placed with the presses for printing of Rs 2,000 denomination notes. "However, there is no decision to discontinue the printing of Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes by the government," the minister said.

Thakur also informed that as on March 31, 2020, there were 27,398 lakh pieces of Rs 2,000 notes in circulation compared to 32,910 lakh pieces on March 31, 2019. He further said the RBI has informed that given nation-wide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the printing of notes stopped temporarily. However, the note printing presses resumed production in a phased manner, as per the guidelines issued by Central/State Government, he added.

The production activities at Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited (BRBNMPL) presses were suspended from March 23, 2020, to May 3, 2020. Printing of banknotes at BRBNMPL presses resumed with effect May 4, 2020. Thakur further said Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL) has informed that the printing of banknotes at their presses was also affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both, Bank Note Presses of SPMCIL -- Currency Note Press, Nashik and Bank Note Press, Dewas were closed down from March 23, 2020, due to lockdown. Currency Note Press, Nashik, and Bank Note Press, Dewas resumed full-fledged production activities from June 8, 2020, and June 1, 2020, respectively. During the period of lockdown, note printing presses have uninterruptedly supplied notes to RBI offices/currency chests from the stock of notes available with them through Indian Railway Treasury Wagons, Thakur added. To another question, the minister said the revision of family pension is one of the demands made by bank employee unions/associations during the course of their discussions with the Indian Banks Association (IBA), negotiating on behalf of its participating member banks, for the 11th bipartite wage settlement. "IBA has informed that during the discussions with representative employee unions/associations consensus was arrived at on recommending revision of family pension," Singh said.

To a question, he said strengthening of monitoring of the banking mechanism is reflected in a steep reduction in the occurrence of frauds in public sector banks, with the amount involved in frauds declining from the peak of 0.96 percent of bank loans in fiscal 2013-14 to 0.15 percent in 2019-20.