No serious threat to economy due to fake currency: Govt

NEW DELHI: The government today said fake currencies do not pose a serious threat to the economy as the number of counterfeit notes is negligible at eight per million pieces in circulation.

"Reserve Bank of India maintains that the volume of fake currency is negligible, at less than 0.001 per cent (8 notes per million pieces) of the total notes in circulation and, therefore, there is no serious threat to the economy on this account," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee informed the Upper House that till September this year, 1,31,098 counterfeit notes have been seized in the country.

The maximum 20,300 notes have been seized from West Bengal, followed by Kerala at 19,057 and 16,681 note from Andhra Pradesh in the current year.

These information were furnished by the National Crime Records Bureau, he said.

Mukherjee added that complaints of seizure of counterfeit notes are not registered by banks, but by the police authorities.

He further said that the RBI has informed that they have received very few complaints of counterfeit currency found in the notes issued by banks during 2006-07 to 2008-09.

In the last fiscal, there were two complaints each of counterfeit currency notes issued by Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and the State Bank of India, and one each by Corporation Bank, Punjab National Bank and IndusInd Bank.

Meena also said the cost of one line of currency paper manufacturing machines is about Rs 500 crore.

"For producing the quantity of paper indigenously, four lines of paper manufacturing machines are required to be installed for which the estimated investment will be in the range of Rs 2000-Rs 2500 crore," he said.