Amid speculation that Centre may be veering around to discontinue high value notes from circulation, Anurag Thakur, minister of state for finance said that government has no plan to withdraw Rs 2,000 notes and these continue to be dispensed through many bank ATMs.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, the minister, said that in view of the higher circulation of Rs 500 and Rs 200 denomination bank notes, the State Bank of India (SBI) has issued communication to its local head offices to reconfigure ATMs for currency notes of the said denominations.

With less number of Rs 2,000 notes visible in market for last couple of months there was speculation that government may be planning to take it out of circulation.

Thakur said that as getting change for Rs 2,000 notes was becoming a problem, SBI and Indian Bank decided to reconfigure their ATMs to support lower denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 200 notes.

He clarified that printing of notes was done by government on the advice of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and while doing so efforts are made to maintain balance of currencies in circulation.

Currently, Rs 7.40 lakh crore worth of Rs 2,000 notes is in circulation. The circulation of Rs 100 notes is of the value of Rs 1.96 lakh crore while that of Rs 50 is Rs 43,784 crore.

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to scrap of all high denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 on November 8, 2016, Rs 2000 notes were launched. A few months later currency notes of Rs 200 were introduced. In the initial phase, the Rs 200 currency notes were available only at bank branches.

However, sources said that to be able to have more currency notes of Rs 200 and Rs 500 in circulation, the printing of Rs 2000 will be lesser. (IANS).