RBI cautions banks on fake currency
15 Jan 2008
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to take stringent measures for preventing circulation of fake currency notes.
Reserve Bank governor Y V Reddy said that fake currency was in circulation in big way and that could jeopardise the country's economy.
Talking to reporters in Kanpur, Reddy said the central and state governments as also security agencies must also take stringent measures to check the menace.
Fake currency is a grave threat to the economy and the onus to prevent its circulation is on the RBI, banks, the governments and security agencies, he said.
Reddy warned banks that if fake currency was issued from any of their ATMs, that bank would be held responsible and strict action would be taken against it.
He also directed RBI officials to keep a vigil on banks and ATM centres from where complaints of issuance of fake currency notes were received.
Meanwhile, the RBI discovered a sizeable number of currency notes missing from among several bunches of missing notes - each containing around one lakh units. Value wise, the missing currency notes adds up to over Rs1 lakh.
All the individual packets of currency notes had come from a single currency chest located on Clive Row in Kolkata. The chest happens to be managed by the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and RBI detected the missing currency between December 18 and 20.
RBI, it is learnt, has directed IOB to run an internal inspection on this incident.
The central bank is also keeping a close watch and has intensified its scrutiny drill. The Reserve Bank Employees Association, meanwhile, accused the RBI management for mismanaging the currency system.
The association has demanded strengthening of the scrutiny system by revving up the manual examination of suspect notes in parallel to the existing mechanised system. It has proposed a time-bound study to examine the entire gamut of the currency management system and called for more currency chests.
