Note Ban: 10% currency won't come back: Niti Aayog member

New Delhi: While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still reconciling the quantum of demonetised currency that has been returned to banks by the December 30, 2016 deadline, NITI Aayog Member Bibek Debroy feels about 10 per cent of such notes won`t return to the system.

"Even now, Rs 1.6 lakh crore is what will be missing at the end of it all. Those are the figures. If I take a base of roughly rounding off demonetised currency around Rs 16 lakh crore, 10 per cent of it is about Rs 1.6 lakh crore," Debroy told IANS in an interview.

"Figures say that still Rs 1.5 lakh crore that has not come back. There is still a gap. People have made estimates that may be 10 per cent will not come back," he added.

Some reports have said about 97 per cent of the demonetised currency notes worth Rs 14.97 lakh crore have been deposited back as on December 30. The government had earlier estimated that about Rs 15.4 lakh crore of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes -- or 86 per cent of cash in circulation -- will be taken out of the system.

Meanwhile, the central bank has cast doubts on its own estimates. "The periodical SBN (specified bank notes) figures released by us were based on aggregation of accounting entries done at the large number of currency chests all over the country," it said.

The last figure released by the RBI was that deposits of Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been received till December 10, 2016.