According to the information gathered from Bharatiya Bank Note Mudran, that functions under the Reserve Bank of India, 3,542.991 million pieces of Rs2000 notes were printed in the financial year 2016-17, which drastically came down to 111.507 million notes in 2017-18, and 46.690 million notes in 2018-19.

This highest denomination currency was introduced in India after PM Narendra Modi’s announcement of demonetization of old Rs500 and Rs1000 currency notes from mid-night of November 8, 2016.

Since the decision had crippled the economy and livelihood of common people, the nation paid huge cost in printing and transportation, millions of ATM had to be recalibrated, made keeping black money easy in bigger denomination, and helped flourishing illegal business of counterfeit notes, the government was compelled to take tacit and conscious decision to make the notes disappear from the market, but only after huge national loss.

The Union Government had recently said in a reply in the Parliament of India that the number of fake currency notes of Rs2000 denomination seized in the country as per NCRB data increased substantially between 2016 and 2020, from 2,272 to 2,44,834 pieces. In 2017, 74,898 pieces of Rs 2000 notes were seized while the total seizure in 2019 was 90,566 pieces.

One of the logics given by the government in favour of demonetization of old Rs500 and Rs1000 notes was to flush out the black money. However, in contrast Rs2000 notes in place of Rs1000 notes made it easy to store more black money, which PM Modi had utterly failed to anticipate. Increasing amount of seizure of Rs2000 notes proves this fact.

While introducing the new notes the Union Government has forwarded another logic that they wanted to clean the market from huge circulation of counterfeit notes by making them very difficult to fake. This assertion was also proved false. Large number of counterfeit notes started appearing in the market just after introduction of the new notes claimed to have extra security features. In fact, counterfeit notes of Rs2000 denomination are very high. As per the RBI data, it had detected a 55 per cent rise in fake notes of this denomination during 2021-22.

Apart for the very high probability of counterfeiting and illegal hoarding of Rs2000 notes in black money, these notes have never been popular in the common people, small traders, and those who needed to pay and receive smaller amount of money. Finding change for Rs2000 in smaller denominations of Rs 500, Rs200, Rs100, Rs.20 or Rs10 have always been a problem.

Keeping this in mind, RBI started supplying more notes of smaller denomination in the market and holding up Rs2000 in the banking system. RBI had also started to withdraw Rs2000 notes as is reflected in its data, which resulted in steady decline over the years. By 2000, there remained only 27,398 lakh pieces (Rs 5,47,952 crore) in the market, which further declined to 24,510 lakh pieces (Rs4,90,195 crore) in 2021, and only 21,420 lakh pieces (Rs4,28,394 crore) by March 31, 2022.

After being introduced Rs2000 notes in 2016, these notes accounted for 50.2 per cent in value as on March 31, 2017. However, as on March 31, 2022, these notes accounted for only 13.8 per cent of all currency notes in circulation. It was thought at the time of introduction of these notes that in absence of older Rs1000 notes, these Rs2000 notes would help RBI to remonetize the Indian economy and market at faster pace.

However, the idea proved to be a mistake. All the ATMs of the country suddenly became inoperative because there was not any slot for the size of this note. It took months to recalibrate the ATMs of the country to provide slots for Rs2000 notes. It delayed remonetisation opposite to the idea of speedy remonetisation. Now, when there are slots in the ATMs for notes of this denomination, banks are not putting Rs2000 notes in the machines, rendering the expenditure in earlier recalibration useless, while they will need further recalibration needing more investment.

Though, Rs2000 notes help the banking system to speedily remonetize the Indian economy, it ultimately proved counter-productive. These have more of a store value hence became more suitable for easy keeping of black money, and well as for counterfeiting with higher profit. Demand for this high value note is very low among common people.

Introduction of Rs2000 notes in the name of serving national interest was thus not more that manifestation of his autocratic behaviour sans any reasonable thought behind the exercise and preparation to effectively deal with the consequences, which ultimately led to huge loss to the nation and its people with great hardship, and finally conscious withdrawal of these notes. Become a rat again – punarmushiko bhavah – says a Sanskrit saying.