State polls driving Rs600b surge in cash circulation, says Rajan

Mumbai: Red-flagging a massive surge in cash circulation during the ongoing state elections, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on Tuesday said money in people’s hands has gone up by over Rs600 billion which is “not normal” and needs to be looked into.
“Around election time, cash with the public does normally increase... You can guess as to reasons why, we can also guess,” Rajan told reporters here after announcing his first bi-monthly monetary policy review of this fiscal.
However, cash in people’s hands is up by more than Rs 600 billion at present, which is “not normal”, he added.
“You see some (spike) not just in the state going to elections, but also in the neighbouring states.There is something... We need to understand it better,” Rajan said.
While Rajan did not get into the specifics about cash usage during election time, almost every poll season sees cash-for-vote allegations flying thick and fast.
Also, quite often instances are reported about polling officials recovering huge cache of unaccounted money.
The election process is currently underway in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
Out of these, Assam and West Bengal had the first phase of polling on Monday.
These polls are being seen as very important for these states as also at the national level.
As per the latest data released by RBI, there was a 48 per cent increase in the currency in circulation at Rs2 trillion for the fortnight ended March 18.
This has led to speculations about the reasons, leading to calls for a need to keep a tab on the cash circulation.
For the same fortnight, the bank deposits growth also fell below 10 per cent, to 9.9 per cent, which was a 53-year low, while advances have picked up.
On this, the Governor said it is good that advances have started growing above the deposit rates.
And that “deposit rates at 9.9 per cent is not something that one must be sneezed at. This is a healthy growth trend,” he added.
Generally, RBI has observed that the cash goes up during festivities.