New  Rs 200 notes will take 3 months to reach ATMs

The new Rs 200 notes were released by the Reserve Bank of India last week and are available at select RBI offices and some homes but they will take another full 3 months to reach the common man through the ATMs. This is because all ATM outlets again need recalibration for the latest new note.

The Rs 200 note is currently being printed only by RBI presses. Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL) sources told media that the
company has not received any indent so far for the printing of Rs 200 notes. India’s two currency presses are owned by RBI and two by SPMCIL, which is a
government-owned company.

The entire process of recalibration can be completed within 90 days without affecting the regular functionality of ATMs to a large extent. In fact, the ATMs
will continue to be fully operational during recalibration and will continue to supply Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denominations,” said Ravi B Goyal, Chairman and Managing Director, AGS Transact Technologies Limited.

This seems a futile exercise of printing new notes and then recalibrating ATM machines, for which the RBI has spent crores of rupees while demonetization, the reason for the exercise has not really caused any financial gain.