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Un-desired decision

Kashmir Times. Dated: 3/20/2017 11:05:22 PM

Dear Editor,
It refers to RTI-response dated 21.02.2017 from Department of Economic Affairs (Government of India) which establishes that a hurried exercise was made to get signature of the then senior-most Secretary in Union Finance Ministry Ratan P Watal on balance print-order of 145 million pieces of one-rupee notes out of total 150 million pieces ordered, because Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL) could supply just 5 million pieces of notes with signature of the then Union Finance Secretary Rajiv Mahrishi till his transfer from the ministry.
File-notings reveal that exercise for printing new one-rupee note with signatures of Ratan P Watal continued till 22.02.2016, even though he was to retire by end of February 2016. Notes could not be practically printed because SPMCIL required four-month time to print notes. Letter dated 16.02.2016 from Legislative Department reveals that required notification could not be issued in time because of amendments in file-notings made from pencil, leading to apprehensions of deliberate delaying the process by some ones in Department of Economic Affairs.
All this establishes that costly and undesired decision to re-start printing of one-rupee notes after two decades of discontinuing printing was a deliberate bureaucratic exercise to get signature of some top bureaucrat of Union Finance Ministry on currency, because only one-rupee notes carry signature of a bureaucrat in Union Finance Ministry while notes of all other denominations bear signature of governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Enquiry should be made and officers exposed who started file to print one-rupee notes issued on 06.03.2015. Further printing of one-rupee notes should be instantly stopped. It is noteworthy that these notes never came in actual circulation, and their packs were sold at premium multiple times of their face-value.
—Subhash Chandra Agrawal,
1775 Kucha Lattushah Delhi.