Rs.50 & Rs.1000 notes with new designs soon

The Rs.1,000 currency notes will be re-introduced in a few months with enhanced security features and different colour, Shaktikanta Das, secretary, department of economy affairs, said on Thursday. Finance minister Arun Jaitley today assured people that demonetising high-denomination currency is beneficial to all in the long run, despite short-term problems. These announcements were made while huge crowds gathered to collect the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes as banks reopened on Thursday after remaining closed for two consecutive days. Minister Jaitley, Das and chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian were all addressing an Economic Editors' conference in New Delhi today, where most, if not all, questions were about the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. About the sudden nature of the announcement to scrap these notes - a decision made to halt terror being funded by Pakistan, and to stem the rising tide of black money - Das said that the process had been under way for the last few months. "Only 2-3 people in the RBI were involved in the designing of notes," said Das.