The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will transfer Rs 30,659 crore of its surplus to the government for the financial year 2016-17, less than half of the Rs 65,876 crore it transferred a year earlier.

The RBI did not provide any reason for the decline in dividend but economists said this indicated the cost incurred by the central bank in printing new notes as well as in sterilising liquidity after old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes were scrapped in November and subsequently returned to the banking system. The dividend paid is the lowest since 2011-12, when the RBI had transferred ...