Mumbai: In a shocking development, an RTI query has revealed that over Rs 88,000 crore worth of Rs 500 notes are missing from the Reserve Bank of India's reserves as not all money printed in mints reached the central bank.
As per a report by FPJ, activist Manoranjan Roy had filed the RTI, which disclosed that the Bengaluru, Nashik, and Dewas government mints printed a total of 8,810.65 million Rs 500 notes. However, the RBI received only 7,260 million notes, indicating a shortage of 1,550.65 million notes. In addition to the missing notes, an earlier RTI response from last month stated that the RBI did not receive 210 million pieces of Rs 500 currency notes printed by the Nashik mint between April 2015 and March 2016.
When combining the missing 210 million notes with the previously mentioned 1,550.65 million missing notes, the total amounts to 1,760.65 million Rs 500 currency notes unaccounted for, equivalent to Rs 88,032.5 crore. The RTI query by Roy aimed to uncover the status of Rs 500 notes, prompting the RBI to disclose that the Nashik mint printed 375.450 million newly designed Rs 500 notes.
However, the RBI's records show that it only received 345 million pieces between April 2015 and December 2016. In another RTI response, the same printing press revealed that during the financial year 2015-2016, 210.000 million pieces of Rs 500 currency notes were supplied to the RBI under the tenure of Raghuram Rajan as RBI governor, but the RBI did not receive any of those notes.