Rs 88,032.5 crore missing from the Indian economy

June 19, 2023 | 2 min read

Replies to RTI queries from currency printing presses, when compared to data available from the RBI, have shown that the latter claims to have not received in its vaults 1,760.65 million or 17,606.5 lakh currency notes of Rs 500 denomination, totalling a value of a staggering Rs 88,032.5 crore. No one has been able to give a logical explanation for this.

A staggeringly high Rs 88,032.5 crore is missing from the Indian economy! Yes, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is mum on it.

This was revealed through RTI queries by RTI activist Manoranjan Roy, reports The Free Press Journal.

Also, alarmingly, all the currency notes missing are Rs 500 notes, and it is well-known that high-value notes are the ones used for illegal purposes.

Data gleaned from the answers to the RTI queries and from RBI reports show that a total of 1,760.65 million or 17,606.5 lakh Rs 500 notes have gone missing from the RBI vaults, which is worth Rs 88,032.5 crore. No one has been able to give a logical explanation for this.

The calculations are as follows:

There are three currency note printing presses in India: Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (P) Limited, Bengaluru, Bank Note Press, Dewas and Currency Note Press, Nashik.

In FY 2016-17, Bengaluru supplied 5,195.65 million pieces, Dewas supplied 1,953 million pieces and Nashik supplied 1,662 million of the new Rs 500 notes to RBI.

The total comes to 8,810.65 million pieces.

But the RBI’s Public Domain Annual Report on Currency Management shows it received only 7,260 million pieces of the newly designed Rs 500 note from all three printing presses.

Therefore, there is a shortfall of 1,550.65 million pieces in FY 2016-17.

Now, in one of the RTI replies, Nashik reported that, for the financial year 2015-16, it supplied 210 million pieces of old Rs 500 notes to the RBI. But the RBI has no record of receiving these in its vaults.

Therefore, adding 210 million to 1,550.65 million shows a total shortfall of 1,760.65 million Rs 500 currency notes, whose value is Rs 88,032.5 crore.