Nearly 60% of all fake currency notes seized in 2021 were of Rs 2,000 denomination, according to the National Crime Record Bureau’s “Crime in India” report for last year.

A total of 3,10,080 fake notes worth Rs 20.39 crore were seized last year. Out of this, 60,915 notes worth Rs 12.18 crore were in the denomination of Rs 2,000, the report said.

The most number of fake Rs 2,000 notes were recovered in Tamil Nadu (25,012 units), followed by Kerala (9,065 units) and Andhra Pradesh (5,012 units).

According to the National Crime Record Bureau, Rs 6.6 crore worth of fake money in Rs 500 denomination and Rs 45 lakh in denomination of Rs 200 were also found last year.

In November 2016, the two highest notes in circulation – Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 – were scrapped by the government in a move referred to as the demonetisation exercise. Prime Minister Narendra Modi replaced them with a newly designed 500 rupee and a newly introduced 2,000 rupee note. The prime minister had said that the decision had been taken to “fight corruption, black money and terrorism”.

However, since 2016, there has been an increase in the seizure of fake currency, according to the data.

In 2016, fake currency worth Rs 15.92 crore was seized, followed by 28.10 crore in 2017, 17.95 crore in 2018, 25.39 crore in 2019 and 92.17 crore in 2020.

The substantial jump in 2020 was on account of the seizure of dummy money issued from the “Children Bank of India” that was recovered from a home in Pune, according to The Hindu.

In March 2021, the Ministry of Finance had informed Parliament that Rs 2,000 notes had not been printed in the last two years.

The Reserve Bank of India had in 2019 reportedly reduced the printing of Rs 2,000 notes to a minimum.