MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has advised banks to preserve the CCTV recordings of operations at bank branches and currency chests from November 8 to December 30, 2016.
The RBI in a statement said this was necessary “to facilitate coordinated and effective action by the enforcement agencies in dealing with matters relating to illegal accumulation of new currency notes “.
The apex bank had earlier issued a notification on October 27, prior todemonetisation , asking the banks to cover the banking hall/area and counters under CCTV surveillance and record to facilitate identification of people abetting circulation of counterfeit notes.
The RBI also said it has issued elaborate instructions to all bank managements to do central data checking and its supervisors are carrying out similar exercise on various data points of banks.
On Monday, the Reserve Bank had directed banks to keep record of new bank notes in view of seizures by Income Tax Department and other law enforcement agencies of large quantities of high denomination notes.
It has been felt necessary to put in place an appropriate reporting system to keep track of issuance of these banknotes by the currency chests, RBI said in a statement.
In view of the above, the banks are advised to maintain, at the currency chest level and at link branches level, a daily record of issuances showing the serial numbers of Rs 500 and above received from RBI as remittance and issuance to their own branches, branches of other banks and post offices, branch wise and denomination wise on daily basis, it said.
The daily record of issuances should be signed by joint custodians and the branch manager at the end of the day, it said.
On Sunday, the finance ministry had asked all public sector banks to strictly maintain record of deposits made through both old Rs 500/1,000 notes and other valid currencies.
In a letter written to chief executive officers of public sector banks, the finance ministry asked that “maintenance of records regarding deposit of Specified Bank Note (SBN) and Non-SBN, as the case may be, is essential both in the bank record as well as the customers record.”
The letter addressed to all the Managing Directors of state-owned banks and Chairman of Indian Banks’ Association, the Department of Financial Services directed them consider this on urgent basis and send action taken report in this regard by December 16.
“This must be followed scrupulously and any deviation in this regard has to be prevented and if noticed, dealt with firmly and immediately,” it said.
Bureau Report
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