New Delhi: The printing of Rs 2,000 banknote, introduced post-demonetisation in November 2016, has been reduced to the "minimum" by the Reserve Bank, a top finance ministry official said on Thursday.

On Friday, the government said that there was "no decision" on printing more of the notes as there are "more than adequate" in the system.

Economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said, “We have more than adequate notes of Rs 2,000 in the system. There has been no recent decision regarding 2000-rupee note production.”

Soon after the decision to ban old Rs 500/1,000 currency notes by the government, the Reserve Bank had come out with the Rs 2,000 currency note along with a new look Rs 500 note as part of its massive remonetisation exercise.

When the Rs 2,000 note was launched, it was decided that the printing would be "scaled down" going forward, since the new high currency value note was meant for meeting the remonetisation need.

According to the RBI data, there were 3,285 million pieces of Rs 2,000 notes in circulation at end-March 2017. A year after (on March 31, 2018), there was only a marginal increase in the number at 3,363 million pieces.

Of the total currency in circulation amounting to Rs 18,037 billion at end-March 2018, Rs 2,000 notes accounted for 37.3%, down from 50.2% at end-March 2017.

The old 500/1,000 bank notes that were scrapped in November 2016 accounted for around 86% of the total currency in circulation at that time.

With PTI inputs