New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that the RBI was fully prepared to deal with currency shortages post demonetisation and has enough currency in its chests to last “far beyond” December 30.
“Today also RBI has more than adequate stock not only to last them for December 30 but to last them far beyond that,” said Mr Jaitley. He said the Reserve Bank has maintained the stock of currency through advance as well as current printing level.
The finance minister said that there was not a single day when the RBI had not released adequate currency to banks. “There was a certain level of currency that was to be released and there was full preparedness for it,” Mr Jaitley said.
On currency in circulation, finance minister said the figures will be made public only after accurate calculation after December 30, the last date for depositing the scrapped currency in banks. “The currency which got printed might have gone to Post Offices and from there to banks and again back to currency chest so there could be double counting and scope for inaccuracies. So we do not want to guess the figures (of currency in circulation),” Mr Jaitley said. Meanwhile, former finance minister P. Chidambaram termed the new restrictions as desperate measures
