Since PM Narendra Modi announced demonetisation, the entire nation was seen standing in long lines, waiting for hours outside bank branches throughout the nation. It was a tiresome and stressful job, but people did it happily as they were confident that this little ordeal of a few weeks will kick the demon of counterfeit currency and black money out of the country. RBI even declared that the new currency notes of ₹2000 and ₹500 can not be faked. So when some farmers discovered that the notes they got were fake, they couldn’t believe their eyes.
Farmers of a remote village in the Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh were shocked and confused when they withdrew the new ₹2000 notes from an SBI branch. The notes issued to them had no image of Mahatma Gandhi on them.
Lakshman Meena, a farmer from Bichugaanvdi village who received the notes said,
“I withdrew Rs 6,000. The cashier gave me three notes of Rs 2,000. When I reached home, my son told me that Gandhiji’s picture was missing in the banknote. My son told me it was fake.”
The farmers thought that they had received fake notes from the bank and approached the bank officials. Akash Shrivastav, Sheopur district manager of SBI said,
“The incident took place at Shivpuri Road branch of SBI. The notes were not counterfeit, but probably there was some printing error. They were taken back as soon as it (the error) was detected,”
The printing mistake must have occurred due to the pressure of printing currency notes at a fast pace, but such mistakes are not expected from an institution like the ‘Reserve Bank of India’.
News Source: Times Of India and Hindustan Times