Reserve Bank of India to introduce Rs 200 notes beginning September

The Reserve Bank of India is likely to issue Rs 200 denomination currency notes by the beginning of September.

The Central government has specified the introduction of bank notes of denomination Rs 200, reported ANI.

"There is no other denomination available between Rs 100 and Rs 500 and RBI is expecting Rs 200 notes to become very popular and that's why it is taking every step to ensure availability of it," reported Economic Timesquoting sources.

Introduction of Rs 200 note will fill in the 'missing middle' even as the new currency in circulation (CIC) has already reached 84 % of the pre demonetisation level, the State Bank of India Ecowrap report had said.

The new notes of Rs 200 will greatly help in narrowing the demand and supply gap in smaller-denomination currency bills.

In July, the RBI had stopped printing Rs 2000 notes about five months ago and is unlikely to print more in the current financial year.

The government had on November 8 last year withdrawn the legal tender status of 500 and 1000 rupee notes to flush out blackmoney and counterfeit currency.

The RBI has refused to give the number of demonetised 500 and 1000 rupee notes returned in the banking system, saying the 'figures would need to be reconciled with the physical cash balances to eliminate accounting errors/possible double counts etc'.

However, according to a reply given in Rajya Sabha on December 2 by the Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, there were 17,165 million pieces of 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of 1000 notes in circulation. That amounts to a total of Rs 15.44 lakh crore in value.

This amounted to 86 per cent of the total currencies in circulation (Rs 17.97 lakh crore).