Over three months after the government decision to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that normalcy has been restored in a short period.

“It was perhaps one of the biggest exercises of demonetisation and remonetisation in the world. Experts said it could take anywhere between seven months to one year for the situation to be normalised. But it was done in a few weeks without any major incidents of unrest in the country,” he said at the Foundation Day ceremony the of Security Printing Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL).

Praising the efforts of the currency printing presses, Jaitley said this was done as the presses of the Reserve Bank of India and SPMCIL worked without a break to remonetise by issuing new bank notes.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das also highlighted the important role of SPMCIL in remonetisation, noting that workers worked in additional shifts to print currency and the notes were airlifted from the presses at Nasik and Devas to different parts of the country.

24X7 shift SPMCIL initially ran two shifts, each with longer duration, he said, adding that in November and December, it operated on three shifts a day, that is, 24x7.

“The total quantum of notes which were printed during those days rose exponentially, which helped the government in the process of demonetisation,” he said. Addressing the event, Praveen Garg, Joint Secretary in the Finance Ministry and Chairman and Managing Director of SPMCIL, said the company has become debt-free and plans to issue bonds this year. To normalise the currency situation, post-demonetisation, the currency presses of SPMCIL transported six crore notes of ₹500 denomination, amounting to ₹21,500 crore, by air.

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