Rs 2000 banknotes: Exchange, deposit at RBI offices won't be available on April 1

The central bank cited operations related to "Annual Closing of Accounts" as the reason behind the unavailability of exchange and deposit services. The facility will resume on Tuesday.

About 2.4 per cent of the just-withdrawn Rs 2,000 banknotes are still in circulation, about six months after the deadline to deposit or exchange them at bank branches is over.

This essentially meant 97.6 per cent of the total value of the high-value Rs 2,000 banknotes were back in the banking system.

The last day for the public to avail of exchange or to deposit high-value Rs 2000 banknotes at the banks was Saturday (October 7).

The total value of Rs 2000 banknotes in circulation was Rs 3.56 lakh crore at the close of business on May 19, 2023, the date on which RBI decided to withdraw the banknote. As of February 29, it has declined to Rs 8,470 crore.

The Rs 2000 banknotes continue to be legal tender.

Notably, the window for depositing and/or exchanging the Rs 2,000 banknotes continues to be available at the 19 issue offices of the RBI.

Those 19 RBI issue offices are in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Members of the public from within the country can send Rs 2000 banknotes through India Post from any post office in the country to any of the RBI Issue Offices for credit to their bank accounts in India.

The Rs 2000 banknote was introduced in November 2016, primarily to meet the currency requirements of the economy expeditiously after the withdrawal of the legal tender status of all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes in circulation at that time.

The objective of introducing Rs 2000 banknotes was met once banknotes in other denominations became available in adequate quantities. Therefore, the printing of Rs 2000 banknotes was stopped in 2018-19. (ANI)