“After 31st December 2019 you cannot change your Rs 2,000 notes,” reads a viral WhatsApp forward.

The message sender claims that the Reserve Bank of India is withdrawing the highest cash denomination to reissue the Rs 1,000 note. It warns that Rs 2,000 note holders can only exchange Rs 50,000. The Rs 1,000 notes will be in circulation from January 1, 2020, it adds.

The message first began doing rounds when an RTI application revealed in October that the RBI has stopped printing Rs 2,000 notes. This gave rise to wide-spread rumours that the government is planning to demonetise the currency.

This prompted the Press Information Bureau to debunk the news on December 5, saying the Reserve Bank of India made no such announcement. RBI told fact checking site Alt News that it did not issue any notification announcing the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes.

“These are all rumours. There has been no such notification (by the RBI). Please refer to the website for all communication,” a statement from RBI’s department of communication said.

#PIBFactCheck Claim: Whatsapp msgs/YouTube channels claim that RBI is releasing new ₹ 1000 notes and discontinuing the ₹ 2000 notes. Reality: There is no such announcement by @RBI. Conclusion: #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/6JBRftMf7z — PIB India (@PIB_India) December 5, 2019

On December 11, Minister of State for Finance Aurag Thakur also informed Rajya Sabha that the government has no such plans.

Samajwadi Party’s Vishambhar Prasad Nishad asked whether the government is planning to re-introduce Rs 1000 denomination note to replace Rs 2000 denomination note. “Black money has increased by introduction of Rs 2000 denomination note. There is misconception among people that you are going to introduce Rs 1000 denomination note again to replace Rs 2000 denomination note,” he asked.

In reply, Thakur said, “This is the real worry (about demonetisation) which has surfaced now. I think that you should not worry about it.”

Thakur also told the House that objectives of demonetisation were flushing out black money, eliminating fake currency notes, strike out terror financing and Left-wing extremism, non-formal economy to a formal economy to expand tax base and boost digitisation.

The government had in November 2016 demonetised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations notes.

Thakur, however, admitted that the currency in circulation has indeed increased in the three years since demonetisation. As on November 4, 2016 were Rs 17,741.87 billion which have now increased to Rs 22,356.48 billion as on December 2, 2019.

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