The Currency Note Press (CNP), which is one of the nine units of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL), wants the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) to compensate its dead stock of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. The CNP reportedly has a dead stock of 300 million notes of these two currencies.
Sources said the CNP had stopped the printing now-scrapped Rs 500 notes around two months back following instructions from the government. “However, the press was not informed that the note was going to be scrapped. We have a total dead stock of around 300 million pieces of both Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and have asked the RBI to compensate us. We got the design for new Rs 500 note just a few days before Diwali,” they said.
The CNP started printing the new Rs 500 notes since the last 10 days. “As many as 3.5 million pieces of the new Rs 500 notes have been printed. This figure may touch 5 million in the next 3-4 days. We plan to send this consignment to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) next week. SPMCIL’s another currency printing unit in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, has also sent a consignment of 5 million Rs 500 notes to the RBI and is in the process of sending another 5 million pieces,” the sources said.
A total 20 million new Rs 500 notes have been printed at Nashik. Dewas and the RBI’s two units at Mysore and Salboni in West Bengal, the sources said. The RBI has also printed the new Rs 2,000 notes at the Mysore and Salboni units.
The SPMCIL, which prints government currencies and other security documents and manufactures coins, has nine units across the country, including two each in Nashik and Hyderabad and a unit each in Mumbai, Kolkata, Noida, Dewas and Hosangabad. The CNP and Indian Security Press are units of the SPMCIL in Nashik. Revenue stamps, stamp papers, passports and Visas are printed at ISP while banking notes are printed at CNP.
