Rs 200 notes in your pockets soon as finance ministry makes it official

Mumbai: In a bid to bridge the gap between low and high value currency denominations, the central government on Wednesday announced the roll out of Rs 200 notes.

The finance ministry, in a notification said, "The central government hereby specifies the denomination of banknotes of the value of two hundred rupees".

According to reports, the Rs 200 notes will be launched by the end of August or in the first week of September.

The RBI also recently announced that it will issue new Rs 50 denomination notes.

The introduction of lower currency notes can be seen as a movement towards remonetisation after the note-ban decision of November 8, 2016. In his fight against black money and counterfeit notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had scrapped the use of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

According to Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economist at the SBI Group: "The introduction of 200 rupee notes will replenish the missing middle, triggered by the withdrawal of the old series of 500 rupee notes”.