Hyderabad: Of the Rs 100 crore of demonetised currency notes exchanged in the city, bankers suspect that about Rs 3 crore may qualify as multiple exchanges.
As per RBI’s guidelines, bankers should seek photocopies of one of the identification proof documents — Aadhaar, PAN card, voter ID, driving licence, passport, NREGA card or any other card issued by the government or public sector unit in the case of employees.
Bankers and the RBI can track duplications in cases of PAN and in some cases of Aadhaar cards since the data is available online. But, there is no tracking system with these institutions to track duplication indulged in by people using other ID cards. Among these are government employee cards, voter ID, driving licence and passports since they are not in one centralised server, unlike PAN and Aadhaar cards AIBEA secretary B. Seetha Rambabu said that a few persons exchanged their old currency with new ones many times.
According to bankers in the city, nearly Rs 3 crore of currency notes exchange might have happened towards duplications. The RBI should take precautionary measures to curb such transactions. It may be a small figure on day one, but, if there is no tracking system, black money holders may adopt the practice in future too,” he said.
An official from ICICI Bank said that they were registering the data of beneficiaries and uploading the data online. “What about post offices? Most post offices do not have computer systems. Manual registration can lead to duplications. We are having counterfeit currency identification devices but, what about post offices? The Reserve Bank of India should issue proper guidelines on the matter,” the official said.
RBI to ink fingers of beneficiaries
Staff at the Reserve Bank of India is marking the index finger of those who are exchanging demonetised currency notes with indelible ink to overcome duplication. On Thursday, the RBI staff adopted the method as there was no tracking system to identify duplications with a few official identification cards.
Usually, the indelible ink is utilised during elections in the country.
