The newly launched 2,000 rupee notes came into circulation a few days after prime minister Narendra Modi outlawed the higher currency notes, bearing signature of its newly appointed RBI governor Urjit Patel but it has emerged that these high value notes were printed during the stint of his predecessor Raghuram Rajan.
The first stage of printing of Rs 2000 notes started on August 22, the first working day after centre announced Patel’s name as the next RBI chief, reported Hindustan Times quoting two RBI presses.
Patel, however took governor’s chair two weeks later on September 4 , raising questions as why the 2000 promissory notes did not carry signature of Rajan.
Notedly, the central bank informed the parliamentary panel in December that they got a go ahead for printing Rs 2000 notes on June 7, 2016.
“Accordingly, the presses were advised in June 2016 to initiate production of new series notes,” the daily quoted from RBI’s letter to parliamentary panel.
Usually the printing process begins immediately after RBI places an order but going by the printing presses version it took almost two and half months to begin the process.
Describing the steps before printing begins an ex-member of the boards of RBI said,”Firstly, the RBI board approves the proposed changes in security features and secondly gets it ratified by the board of BRBNMPL.”
An RTI query by HT also revealed that Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (P) Ltd (BRBNMPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the central banks,tarted the printing process for the redesigned Rs 500 notes only on November 23.
This also validates the assertion that government started printing Rs 500 notes much later which resulted in worsening of crisis following demonetisation.
