RBI postpones decision on practice of return paid government cheques

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank has postponed its decision to do away with the requirement of returning paid government cheques to concerned departments, which was to come to force from today.

"...the discontinuation of P2F (Paper to Follow) for government cheques was to be implemented with effect from January 1, 2015. However, it has now been decided to postpone the implementation of discontinuation of P2F," the RBI said in a release today.

RBI said that the revised date would be advised shortly. Easing norms to enhance efficiency of cheque clearing system, RBI in September 2014 had said that there will be no need to return back paid government cheques to the concerned departments from January 1, 2015.

Presently Cheque Truncation System (CTS) is used to clear cheques that facilitates presentation and payment of cheques without their physical movement.

However, with regard to government cheques, they need to be sent back in physical form after the payment has been made to the government departments.

CTS is the process in which the physical movement of a cheque within the bank, between the banks or between the banks and the clearing house is curtailed or eliminated.

It is being replaced in whole or in part, by electronic records of their content (with or without the images) for further processing and transmission.