Kochi: Don’t be surprised if you get old notes from ATMs on a regular basis for the next month. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has initiated ‘re-issuing’ soiled notes received from various banks in the region instead of withdrawing them in a desperate measure to increase circulation of notes of smaller denomination.
“So far the practice was to withdraw the soiled currency chests received from banks. However, now soiled notes, especially Rs 100 notes, are being re-issued if they are still found to be legal tender — i.e., not torn and the serial numbers readable. This is in addition to the issuance of new notes,” a senior bank official said.
The RBI offices at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi have started the re-issue of the soiled notes from last Thursday. “We’ve also started dispatching the new Rs 500 note to banks in Thiruvananthapuram. Banks will now have enough currencies to tide over the temporary shortfall. Also customers will find most ATMs cash-filled,” he said.
The banks used to collect ssoiled notes from customers and remit the same to the Bankers' Bank. The RBI would withdraw them from circulation and pay back ‘lesser compensation’ to them. Meanwhile, with high volume of old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 being received, the headquarters have ordered the offices here to deploy additional staff and perform shredding of the notes even on nights, starting from Tuesday.
“We’ll be operating the CVPS machines even on night from now onwards," the official said. The high speed Currency Verification and Processing Systems (CVPS) machines are capable of processing 50,000-60,000 pieces per hour and the notes are shredded and briquetted on-line, before they are send to various factories as scrap.
