70% want return of `1,000

Mumbai, Sept. 12: Ten months after the note-ban which saw the scrapping of the `1000 and `500 notes, nearly 70 per cent of the population want the `1,000 banknotes back, says a survey.

Last November, the government scrapped `500 and `1,000 notes, which accounted over 86 per cent of the total `16.24 trillion value of banknotes in circulation as of March 2016.

To the consternation of the pro-note-ban advocates and the government which was expecting trillions in savings from the move, last week the RBI had said as much as 99 per cent of the scrapped notes have come back to the system.

“Nearly 69 per cent of the of surveyed population responded with ‘yes’ when asked if there is a need for `1,000 banknotes,” according to a survey conducted by Way2Online, a Hyderabadbased local language short news app.

Following demonetisation, RBI had introduced new `500 and `2,000 notes.

Having released the new `500 and `2,000 bills for easy swapping of old notes, the choice of denominations severely hurt the section of population that deal with smaller denomination notes, the survey said.

“Around 62 per cent of the respondents faced problems in getting change since the note ban, while a 38 per cent had no issue in getting the change,” it said.

In August, the Reserve Bank introduced `200 banknotes in a bid to fill the gap and ease cash transactions by guaranteeing getting change for larger denomination notes. When asked if the newly minted `200 bill will help in fixing the problem, more than two-thirds of the respondents or 67 per cent, answered in the affirmative while 17 per cent said that the new note will make no difference. — PTI