Note Cleaning Policy by Central Bank of Nepal stuns the Public

by Shreedeep Rayamajhi    March 15, 2011

Kathmandu 14 March 2011: The regulatory body, the central bank of Nepal, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has issued strict directives to banks and financial institutions for omitting or stops transacting the previous version of notes carrying the Ex-monarch’s image from Tuesday onwards. The NRB had launched the new 50- and 100-rupee denominations in mid-2008 that also removed Ex-monarch Gyanendra’s name, image, and royal symbols.

According to Gopal Kafle, Deputy Governor at NRB, “The note cleaning policy is a must as we want to withdrawal the Ex-monarch’s image notes and we believe that the note cleaning policy will help us to withdrawal all the currency notes by mid-March,”

Clarifying the conflict he said, “The notes in use by public with the Ex-monarch’s image will not be demonetized as the currency’s intrinsic value will be intact. The withdrawal notes collected by the central bank would be further processed.” 

According to the note cleaning policy, the central bank has decided to completely pull all the old currencies and after that period, the remaining currencies in circulation will not be easily accepted.

 Ravi Singh, a student said “The central bank out of nowhere issued the notice few days back and is processing it. It’s completely illogical and absurd, the central bank could have withdrawal the notes with the ex monarch’s image in a slow process as the notes would be tore out and they would need to be replaced. Why to issue a notice to general public in a hurry and process the Note Cleaning Policy is a question that rises? There is no sense of responsibility here as they all know how to give trouble to the general public as it would not affect the high end players but it will certainly harsh the general public. I as a normal lay man completely oppose this policy by the central bank and activities like these certainly create a bad image in the credibility of the bank.”       

 The NRB had recently issued a notice to the common public through different mediums urging the common exchanger and public to exchange their notes with ex monarch’s image till Monday. The notice
also made it clear that NRB won’t be compelled to exchange such notes from Tuesday. 

Monarchy in Nepal was taken down by the newly formed coalition government on December 24, 2007 and from then the NRB has been trying to change the notes. The Note Cleaning Policy is estimate to be to withdrawal 10 billion rupees of Ex-monarch’s image notes from the market till the mid of March.

By Shreedeep Rayamajhi

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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