Reserve Bank of India has stopped printing Rs 2,000 denomination notes in a bid to address concerns over money laundering and fake currency notes in circulation.

According to an RTI reply by the RBI to The New Indian Express, The Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited has not printed a single banknote of Rs 2,000 denomination in this financial year.

According to data in the RBI’s annual report , the number of ₹2,000 notes, however, fell to 329.1 crore pieces in 2018-19, constituting just 3 per cent of the notes in circulation, from 336.3 crore pieces a year ago. In value terms, the decline was sharper at ₹6.58-lakh crore, or 31.2 per cent of the notes in circulation in 2018-19, from ₹6.72-lakh crore, or 37.3 per cent of the notes in circulation in 2017-18.

The move to discontinue the Rs 2,000 note comes even as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) found fake currency notes in circulation.

The circulation of high-quality fake notes was one of the six major emerging challenges cited by the NIA at a meeting on Monday, according to The Hindu. The NIA is the nodal agency for fake note related cases.

Counterfeiting of the newly-designed ₹500 notes shot up by 121 per cent and of the ₹2,000 notes by 21.9 per cent in 2018-19 in comparison to the previous year, according to RBI data. Of the ₹200 denomination note, which was introduced in August 2017, as many as 12,728 counterfeit notes were detected as against 79 during the previous year.

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