Deposit trends: Has Modi underestimated India's laundering capacity?

If deposit trends so far and projections are to be believed, the black money expected to be purged may be much less than what the government hoped

The main reason given by the government for demonetising high denomination notes was to curb black money. Various estimates have been made of the quantum of the money that is not expected to be deposited in banks – ranging from Rs 3 lakh crore to Rs 5 lakh crore.

But if one goes by the deposit trends so far and the projections, the black money expected to be purged may be much less. The Narendra Modi government may thus be in for a shock. On Tuesday (November 29), in a reply in the Rajya Sabha, minister of state for finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said that there were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of Rs 1000 notes in circulation on November 8, the day Modi made the announcement of demonetising the two high denomination notes. The total amount of high denomination currency circulating in the system on that day was, thus, Rs 15.44 lakh crore (Rs 8.58 lakh crore in Rs 500 notes and Rs 6.86 lakh crore in Rs 1,000).

 

On November 28, the Reserve Bank of India announced that Rs 8.45 lakh crore (Rs 8,44,962 crore) in the banned high denomination notes had been deposited in the banks between November 10 and November 27. Banks were closed on November 9. This was the value of banned notes deposited in the banks in 18 days, out of the 50 days that the government has permitted bank customers to do so. Note, this amount has been deposited despite the huge queues outside banks deterring many people from putting money into their accounts.

Further, all commercial banks in India have to maintain a portion of their deposits with the RBI, known as the cash reserve ratio (CRR). The RBI uses this to manage liquidity in the system. On November 8, the total amount of actual cash with the RBI as CRR was Rs 4.06 lakh crore (Rs 4,06,900 crore), according to the weekly bulletin of the central bank. This is cash, sent mostly in large currency notes, according to bankers, by the banks on any incremental deposit that they have, thus adding to their CRR deposit held with the RBI. Additionally, banks retain money with themselves to manage day-to-day affair and to provide money on demand to customers. According to the RBI, the average cash-to-deposit ratio of banks in India is 4.69. If four percentage points from this goes as CRR to RBI, amounting to Rs 4.06 lakh crore (on November 8), the cash with banks would average around Rs 70,000 crore. This would include all denominations, of course.

So, if we take the money deposited in 20 days and add the November 8 CRR to it, that amounts to Rs 12.50 lakh crore. If we further add a portion of the cash-in-hand on November 8, say Rs 50,000 crore, the total amount of money which is not with public in old notes is Rs 13 lakh crore.

There are still 30 days left to deposit the banned currency notes. At the rate at which money is being deposited, it stands to reason that 

Rs 2 lakh crore or more would come into the system until December 30, thus throwing to the winds all calculation by the government of tackling black money. Either the black money is not in high denomination notes or those who have such money may already have put it back into the banking system.