It is a problem of plenty for the banks and currency chests, which store currency notes and coins on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India. With people depositing the demonetised notes of ₹500/1,000 in crores, bank branches and currency chests are overflowing with no room for further storage.

Sources in banking circles confirmed that the RBI has now started the process of mobilising the demonetised currency notes from currency chests to RBI’s regional headquarters.

“Currency chests are bursting with loads of demonetised cash bundles. There is no further room to store any more currency. In the last 10 days, there has been no movement to transfer this cash to the RBI. Now from November 22, we are told RBI will start mobilising this demonetised cash to its regional headquarters,” said the Chief General Manager of a public sector bank in Ahmedabad.

According to sources, the demonetised notes will be transported under armed security to the regional RBI headquarters, where they are likely to be shredded or converted into paper pulp.

The remittance from the currency chests to the RBI is done through a long procedure of counting, sorting, packaging and verification for fake notes.

“In case of any irregularity in the notes, the RBI will impose heavy penalty on the currency chests. Therefore, banks and currency chests are being extra cautious in remitting the old notes to the RBI,” another bank official said.

The bank officials claimed that there was a stupendous surge in the quantity of old currency notes in the past 10 days leaving little room for the new notes coming from the RBI.

“After this remittance to the RBI, there will be extra space in chests to store new notes,” the official stated.

According to sources, unprecedented security arrangements have been made with extra force deployment from State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) guarding the cash on road transport, while for rail movement of cash, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) is being deployed.

Related Topics