RBI to lease currency verification systems to weed out fakes

New Delhi: The Reserve Bank will hire 12 currency verification systems for six months to help it segregate fake ones from scrapped notes of Rs 500/1000 denomination.

The central bank is currently engaged in counting huge pile of old Rs 500/1000 notes which were scrapped following demonetisation on November 9, 2016.

Earlier in May, the Reserve Bank had floated a global tender for leasing of 18 'Currency Verification and Processing System (CVPS)'.

However, the tender was later cancelled and now a fresh one has been floated to lease 12 such systems.

As per the tender document, the currency notes of all denominations received at regional office of the RBI would have to be processed at a minimum speed of 30 notes per second.

The term of the lease contract will be of six months, extendable by three blocks of two months each, it added.

RBI Governor Urjit Patel, while appearing before a Parliamentary panel on July 12, had reportedly said the deposited banned notes were still being counted and therefore he was not in a position to give a figure on the scrapped currency that was back in the system.

Patel did not provide any "specific number" on the amount of money that had been deposited post-demonetisation.

According to the finance ministry, as on November 8, the day demonetisation was announced, there were 1,716.50 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 685.80 crore Rs 1,000 notes in circulation.