The officiating General Manager of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Dehradun, Subrat Das has made an appeal to the people not to hoard currency notes and refrain from coming to the banks out of panic. He claimed that both the RBI and the banks have enough stock of currency of small denominations which people can withdraw from the banks at their discretion. The RBI has also made an appeal to the people to switch over to alternative modes of payment like prepaid cards, credit and debit cards, mobile banking and internet banking. The regulator of banking sector has also urged the account holders of Jan Dhan Yojana to use the cards which are issued to them as such a thing would alleviate the pressure on the physical currency.
In a press release the RBI has said that the withdrawal of the legal tender character of the then existing bank notes in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 cast a huge responsibility on the banking system to swiftly withdraw these specified bank notes in as smooth a manner as possible and in a non-disruptive way and provide in exchange notes of other denominations which are legal tender. It entailed swift withdrawal of the specified bank notes from the ATMs also within a few hours of the announcement, recalibrating these for issuance of other legal tender notes and reloading them in a matter of two days and providing the exchange facility for members of public at all bank branches all over the country, just after a day from the announcement.
The RBI has also said that it has adequate stock of currency notes which are kept ready in the Currency Chests located at more than 4,000 places across the country. Bank branches are linked to these chests to source their requirements from them. To meet the demand the printing presses of RBI are printing the currency notes at full capacity so that adequate quantum of notes is available.