RBI to establish first Automated Banknote Processing Centre in Jaipur

The Reserve Bank of India will be setting up its first Automated Banknote Processing Centre (ABPC) in Jaipur for storage, receipt and dispatch of currency notes. The decision was taken to effectively deal with the increasing circulation of banknotes. 

The RBI document stated that cash remains an important mode of payment for most Indian citizens, notwithstanding the growth in digital payments. In fact, the currency notes in circulation have been steadily increasing with the rise in digital payments. Besides this, the global trend of the increasing volume of banknotes in circulation has been witnessed in India as well.

This increased volume of currency noted made it necessary for the apex bank to relook the present system of cash management and a need is felt to automate the handling of banknotes for the receipt, storage, processing and destruction with the use of modern technology..

Automated Banknote Processing Centre: Key Functions

•The key functions of the proposed Automated Banknote Processing Centre will include automated storage and receipt of fresh banknotes from printing presses and automated retrieval and dispatch of the notes to the identified issue offices or currency chests.

•The centre will also facilitate storage, processing and destruction of soiled banknotes to and from identified bank branches and currency chests (CCs) covering the jurisdiction of the states being catered.

•It will be designed to store the daily average fresh note stock requirement and hold the stock of about 15 days of soiled banknotes and provide commensurate processing and destruction capacities.

Capacity of the Centre 

The RBI has projected storage capacity requirements for the ABPC, which includes a daily average of fresh note stock at 1,883 million pieces during 2024-25, 2,950 million pieces during 2029-30 and 6,853 million pieces during 2039-40.

The centre is also projected to store about 7,718 million pieces of soiled notes during 2024-25, 11,568 million pieces during 2029-30 and 27,757 million pieces during 2039-40.

Background

The Reserve Bank of India is the sole issuer of banknotes in the country. The apex bank is responsible for the management of currency and all its aspects. Overall, the bank is supplied with banknotes from four printing presses and coins from four mints.

The new notes and coins are sent to 19 issue offices of RBI across the country and from here the notes are further distributed to around 3000 currency chests operated by scheduled banks under an agency agreement with the RBI.