Today, six years have passed since demonetisation. Demonetisation was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016. After this, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were banned all over the country, which at the time accounted for 86 percent of the entire currency circulation.

Its objective was to curb black money in the country, eliminate counterfeit notes and promote the digital economy. After demonetisation, there has been a big boom in the digital economy of the country. The number of black money and counterfeit notes has been curbed to some extent, although the problem of black money and counterfeit notes still remains.

Along with demonetisation in the country, a decision was also taken to launch a new currency. With this, 1000 rupees notes were completely out of circulation and new notes of 2,000 and 200 were introduced in the market. At the same time, the 500 note was relaunched.

Digital transactions got a boost

Digital transactions have seen a big boom in the country after demonetisation. The share of digital transactions in the total transactions in the country was 11.26 percent in the financial year 2015-16, which has increased to 80.40 percent in the financial year 2021-22 and is expected to reach 88 percent in the financial year 2026-27.

UPI gets a big boost

According to the NPCI website, the then RBI Governor Dr Raghuram G Rajan along with 21 banks launched the pilot of UPI on April 11, 2016, following which banks have started uploading the UPI app on Google Play Store from August 25, 2016. But it got a big boost after demonetisation. In October this year, financial transactions through UPI reached a record high of Rs 12.11 lakh crore.

Cash still prevails

After demonetisation, the number of digital transactions has increased rapidly in the country, but cash still remains the king of the market. You can estimate this from the fact that before the demonetisation, on November 4, 2016, there was some 17.7 lakh crore rupees in currency in the country, which according to the data released on 21 October 2022, has become 30.88 lakh crore rupees.