An analysis on Printing and circulation of Paper Money – 9
Once the Indents are received, the presses supplied around 85 % to 90 % of Bank Notes in various denominations against the Indent except two or three years when they could supply to the full quantity Indented. The reasons for the short supplies by the presses are many which should not be explained in detail. Therefore we leave this aspect lie there. During many years the Indent and Supply has not matched. The supplies from the Security Printing Presses against the requirement of RBI has always been less except in the year 2009-10 when the supplies marginally exceeded the requirement.
The following table show the ‘Quantum of Bank Notes in individual denominations’ Indented by RBI and Supplied by the presses during the same period as shown above i.e for 2003-2014.
Basis for placing the Indent has been already discussed ? If you see the Indent pattern you can see over the years that the Indent has been placed by RBI to print on an average of 35% per annum of the total volume of Bank Notes ( in million pieces) circulated in the previous year. For example the Indent placed for 2003-04 is for 15800 million pieces of Various denominational Bank Notes based on 40356.27 million Bank Notes issued/ circulated the previous period i.e in 2002-03. This however works out to 39 %, but when we take an average of 10 years i.e a decade it works out to an average figure of 35 % only.
Like the throne in flesh, the sorting out process of Soiled notes in the banks and separating the good and bad prints during printing process involve big manual force besides taking much time whose expenditure is also not commensurate with the end product cost . Therefore such of the practices are slowly dispensed with automation processes have been introduced in several points to ensure that subjectivity in manual process is avoided and also quickens the processing time. RBI’s aim is to supply at least 50% of the Notes for circulation every year. Therefore they need continuous supply of fresh Notes every year. The Printing of Bank Notes and circulation is a continuous process. ‘X’ quantity can not be produced in one stroke whenever needed as many processes are involved.