Five years after demonetisation, notes under circulation in value terms have gone up

Though the government had launched its sudden move of demonetisation to cull out black money by weeding out currency notes worth 500 and 1,000 rupees denomination out of the system, on November 8, 2016, the notes in circulation in value terms have increased by 64 per cent since that day till October 29, 2021.

According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), notes in circulation (NIC) in terms of value, went up from Rs 17.74 lakh crore on November 4, 2016 (just four days before demonetisation was announced), to Rs 29.17 lakh crore on October 29, 2021, an increase of 64 per cent.

This shows that the other purpose of demonetisation, i.e. promotion of digital payments, has not impacted cash transactions much. 

The NIC went up by Rs 2,28,963 crore on October 29, 2021 from Rs 26.88 lakh crore as on October 30, 2020.

The year-on-year increase on October 30, 2020, was Rs 4,57,059 crore.

The RBI data further showed that the year-on-year increase in NIC on November 1, 2019, was Rs 2,84,451 crore.

The value and volume of bank notes in circulation had increased by 16.8 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively, during 2020-21 as against an increase of 14.7 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively during 2019-20.