“RBI’s big decision, now 2000 rupee notes will not come out of ATM.” This is the headline of a News Track Live article that has been circulated on WhatsApp with the message. According to the article, the Reserve Bank of India will stop the circulation of Rs 2,000.
According to the forward doing the rounds, new Rs 1000 notes will instead be introduced on January 1, 2020. The article also claimed that after December 31, 2019, people will not be able to exchange their Rs 2,000 notes.
This news, however, is not true. The Reserve Bank of India has made no such announcements regarding stopping the circulation of the Rs 2000 note.
In October this year, in an RTI reply to The New Indian Express, RBI said that not a single Rs 2,000 note was printed by the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited in the current financial year. Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited prints the bank notes for the RBI.
However, the RBI did not make any announcements that it will be taking back the current notes in circulation.
The TNIE report quoted experts as saying that this could be a move by the government to slowly phase out this high-value denomination, in an attempt to curb black money transactions.
A press release issued by the Press Information Bureau, a nodal agency of the Indian government, on December 3, clearly states that there is no proposal to stop the circulation of Rs 2,000 notes. Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on December 3, also stated that there is no such proposal.
He also stated that as on March 31, 2019, the share of the value of Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes in circulation (Rs 6,582 billion) to the value of total notes in circulation (Rs 21,109 billion) was 31.18%.
Besides, TNM has already debunked the fake news of RBI printing new Rs 1,000 notes.
Rs 2,000 notes were introduced in November 2016, after the government demonetised Rs 5,00 and Rs 1,000 notes. In terms of value, Rs 2,000 notes account for about one-third of currency in circulation.