70% Of Notes To Be Remonetised By February-End: SBI Research

At the Reserve Bank of India's current printing press capacity, 70 per cent of the notes will be remonetised and "normalcy will return most likely" by the end of February, according to a report by SBI Research, the economic research arm of State Bank of India. The report also noted, quoting Reserve Bank of India data, that Rs. 7 lakh crore of new currency has been supplied till January 13, 2016, adding that "printing of new notes is going on at a pace keeping in mind the less cash future and not the past and we welcome this new normal".

Roughly 70 million pieces of notes of different denominations are being printed per day at the printing press. This translates into around 1.8 billion pieces per month, said the SBI Research report, released on Friday.

"It is highly unlikely that RBI has only printed Rs. 500 notes in entirety" given the current printing press capacity, due to the printing capacity of "less than 2 billion pieces a month, it seems going by the data", it said.

RBI has most likely also printed notes of varied smaller denominations as well as printing Rs. 2000 notes, so as to optimise the printing capacity."