RBI issues norms to set up Currency Chests

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued guidelines for banks to set up new currency chests. The guidelines include:

• Area of the strong room/ vault of at least 1,500 sq ft. For those situated in hilly/ inaccessible places, the strong room/ vault area of at least 600 sq ft.
• The new chests should have a processing capacity of 6.6 lakh pieces of banknotes per day. Those situated in the hilly/ inaccessible places, a capacity of 2.1 lakh pieces of banknotes per day.
• The currency chests should have Chest Balance Limit (CBL)  of Rs 1,000 crore, subject to ground realities and reasonable restrictions, at the discretion of the Reserve Bank.

Currency Chest

Currency chest is the place where the currency is stored. These chests act as the distributives of RBI cash and enable RBI to take back soiled notes and mutilated notes from the public.

As per the RBI’s annual report of 2017-18, the currency management infrastructure consists of a network of 19 issue offices of the Reserve Bank, 3,975 currency chest and 3,654 small coin depots of commercial, co-operative and regional rural banks spread across the country.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2019