97.82% of Rs 2000 notes have come back to system, says RBI

In a statement Monday, the RBI said with only Rs 7,755 crore yet to be returned to the system as of May 31, the total value of Rs 2000 banknotes that have come back to the system stands at 97.82 percent of what was in circulation as on May 19, 2023.

The monetary authority has been periodically publishing the status of the withdrawal of the 2000 banknotes and has done so thrice since then with the last one being published on May 2, 2024.

After it asked all bank branches to accept these notes for return up to October 7, 2023, it opened special counters for deposit and/or exchange of these banknotes at select branches. The facility for exchange was made available at the 19 issue offices of the Reserve Bank since May 19, 2023. It also allowed the public to send these banknotes through India Post to any of the issue offices for credit to their bank accounts.

These banknotes continue to be legal tender, the regulator reiterated.

The 19 issue offices of the RBI are at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Belapur (Navi Mumbai), Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram.