It has been long since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) closed taking demonetized currency notes but many people still hold old and unacceptable currency notes. Devotees on a Sri Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrimage have been found offering demonetized currency notes at the cave holy place in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir. Vaishno Devi, which is India's second richest holy place after Andhra Pradesh's Tirumala Tirupati temple, has received Rs 2.3 crore worth of the demonetized currency notes since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization on November 8, 2016.
Pilgrims had accessible the banned currency notes worth Rs 1.90 crore in just one month after the note ban but the donation saw a steep decline in 2017 and 2018. The total offerings at the holy place in the past two years amounted to Rs 40 lakh.
Simrandeep Singh, the shrine board CEO: "There is no dip in the offerings. Rather the trend is heartening but yes some devotees still offer demonetized currency. This figure of such demonetized currency has reached Rs 40 lakh."
Singh added since the RBI has stopped up tolerant these notes, the board now plans to dispose of them "in an appropriate manner". The cash-rich shrine received Rs 164 crore in contribution in the year 2018, an Rs 10-crore rise from a year before.
Demonetisation of high-value currency notes — Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes — that constitute 86.4 percent of the money in movement in November 2016 was a step taken to bring back money that was out of the banking system. The total value of invalidated Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at the time of demonetization was Rs 15.44 lakh crore, out of which Rs 16,000 crore was not returned to the RBI.
After demonetization, most of the currency in the movement was withdrawn but still, there were many who couldn't abide by the RBI deadline on recurring notes. As per the RBI, the currency in circulation as of November 9, 2018, was Rs 20.2-lakh crore, while it was Rs 16.2-lakh crore during a year ago period.
