RBI may be holding back Rs 2,000 notes: SBI report

Agencies
December 21, 2017

New Delhi, Dec 20: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may either be holding back Rs 2,000 notes or could have stopped printing high denomination currency, says a SBI Research report.

Juxtaposing the data presented in the Lok Sabha recently with the one provided by RBI in its Annual Report earlier, the SBI Ecoflash report said on Wednesday, "we observe" that the value of small denomination currency in circulation up to March 2017 was Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

This implies that the value of high denomination notes was equivalent to Rs 13.32 lakh crore as on December 8, after netting out the small denomination notes from the currency in circulation on that day, it said.

The report further said that as per the Ministry of Finance in the Lok Sabha recently, the RBI has printed 1,695.7 crore pieces of Rs 500 notes and 365.4 crore pieces of Rs 2,000 notes as on December 8. The total value of such notes translates into Rs 15.79 lakh crore.

"This means that the residual amount of high currency notes (the difference between Rs 15.79 lakh crore Rs 13.32 lakh crore) of Rs 2.46 lakh crore may have been printed by the RBI but not supplied in the market," said the report authored Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, SBI.

Interestingly, the report added, "it is safe to assume" that Rs 2.46 lakh crore may be on the lower side as the RBI must have printed notes of small denomination in the interregnum (Rs 50 and Rs 200).

"As a logical corollary, as Rs 2,000 denomination currency led to challenges in transactions, it thus indeed seems that RBI may have either consciously stopped printing the Rs 2,000 denomination notes/or printing in smaller numbers after initially it was printed in ample amount to normalise the liquidity situation," said Ecoflash.

This also means that the share of small currency notes in total currency in circulation now may have touched 35% in value terms, it added.

The government on November 8 last year had announced demonetisation of high value notes, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, which together accounted for 86-87% of the currency in circulation.

The move had lead to huge cash shortage and large queues were witnessed at banks for exchange or depositing the scrapped currency.

The RBI introduced a new Rs 2,000 note as well as new version of the Rs 500 note.

Subsequently, the RBI, for the first time, also introduced a Rs 200 note.

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Agencies
August 6,2020

Ahmedabad, Aug 6: In a major incident, a fire broke out in a Covid-designated hospital in Ahmedabad killing eight coronavirus patients. The mishap occurred in the wee hours of Thursday.

All the victims were in the ICU ward, where the fire is said to have started. Officials said that they all died on the spot while 41 other patients were shifted to other hospitals following a rescue operation. One paramedic staff of the hospital who tried to douse the fire sustained burn injuries.  

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, who is also the health minister, said that primary information has revealed that fire was caused by the short circuit in the ICU ward where eight patients were under treatment. 

He said that 41 other patients were shifted to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel hospital. The incident happened at Shrey Hospital in Navrangpura which is one of the Covid-19 designated hospitals. Over 300 patients have recovered at the hospital in the last two months.

Among the victims were five men and three women. They have been identified as Arif Mansuri, Narendra Shah, Manu Rami, Leelvati Shah, Navneet Shah, Jyoti Sindhi, Manu Rami and Ayesha Tirmizi  

Following the incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "Saddened by the tragic hospital fire in Ahmedabad. Condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to CM @vijayrupanibjp Ji and Mayor
@ibijalpatel Ji regarding the situation. Administration is providing all possible assistance to the affected."

Soon after the tweet, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani ordered a probe into the matter to be conducted by Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Home, Sangeeta Singh and ACS (Urban Development) Mukesh Puri. 

They have been asked to submit a report in three days. Meanwhile, the hospital building has been sealed for further investigation. 

The chief minister has ordered a report within three days.

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News Network
May 21,2020

New Delhi, May 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid tributes to Rajiv Gandhi on his death anniversary.

Former prime minister Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1991 in Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur by a suicide bomber during an election campaign.
 
"On his death anniversary, tributes to former PM Shri Rajiv Gandhi," Modi tweeted.

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Agencies
May 9,2020

New Delhi, May 9: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider a plea raising the issue of mass termination and the illegal salary cut of employees in IT/ITES/BPO/KPI by their employers during the lockdown due to the spread of the coronavirus.

A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, S.K. Kaul and B.R. Gavai, taking up the matter through video conferencing, agreed to examine the issue and listed it for May 15.

The petition, argued by senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, was filed by National Information Technology Employees Sena (NITES) through advocate-on-record Amit Pai, and sought implementation of directions issued by the Centre on March 29 and similar advisories issued by several other states mandating payment of wages/salaries to the employees and also directed not to terminate them during the period of lockdown.

A directive was issued by the Union Ministry of Labour and Empowerment to all Chief Secretaries of state governments to issue advisories to public and private companies to not lay off employees or implement pay cuts during lockdown.

In the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report published on April 19, it was noted that "several companies across the country have started to terminate its employees without any reasonable cause and have started withholding their salaries. It is submitted that in such testing times, the rights of the employees ought to be protected by necessary orders/directions to the companies through the Respondents to effectively implement the lockdown and to contain the spread of the virus", said the plea.

On March 29, the Centre issued an order directing all states and Union Territories to issue orders, requiring all the employers in the industrial sector and shops and commercial establishments to pay wages on the due date without any deduction during their closure due to the lockdown.

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