121% rise in fake ₹500 notes, 21.9% in ₹2,000 notes in 2018-19, says RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that the counterfeiting of the newly-designed ₹500 notes have increased by 121 per cent while the same of ₹2,000 currency notes have shot up by 21.9 per cent, in comparison to the previous year.

Moreover, 12,728 fake ₹200 currency notes were detected this year as against 79 last year, the central bank said. The newly-designed note was launched in August, 2017.

Further, the RBI has detected a rise of 20.2 per cent, 87.2 per cent and 57.3 per cent in counterfeit notes detected in the denominations of ₹10, ₹20 and ₹50, respectively. However, fake notes detected in the denomination of ₹100 declined by 7.5 per cent.

Around 5.6 per cent of the total Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICNs) detected in 2018-19 in the banking sector were detected at the RBI, while the rest, 94.4 per cent, were detected by other banks, the central bank said.

The RBI said that the total expenditure incurred on security printing from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 stood at ₹48.11 billion, as against ₹49.12 billion in the previous year.

(With inputs from agencies)