Economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has said that the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in November 2016 achieved the objectives quite substantially as it helped curb black money flows, even as the RBI reported most of the demonetised currency was back with the banks. As per the RBI's annual report, as much as 99.3 percent of the demonetised notes have returned to the banking system.
Garg has mentioned that objectives of the note ban like checking black money, terror financing, promoting digital transaction and weeding out fake currency notes have been achieved. He noted that over the last one year and 10 months, there has not been a single high quality fake note in the system as a result of a new security feature in notes. Besides, he stressed that there is no currency shortage in any part of the country. On the cost of printing and transport of new notes post note ban, he said RBI spends about Rs 4,000-5,000 crore annually on currency but in the last fiscal it spent Rs 8,000 crore. He stated that with this the process of demonetisation is complete and added that physical currency at present was 87-88% of what it would have been had the pre-demonetisation trend continued, which is Rs 3-4 lakh crore less money in circulation.
Talking about old notes with Nepal, Economic affairs secretary said that no final decision had been taken on the issue so far. He also said that the perception that lot of people may be holding banned currency notes outside India is not correct. He said “The non-citizen have no right to hold it in first place... therefore there is no legal provision to take it back.” He added that there are small quantities of notes that are with enforcement agencies and some in court cases.