Where's the Illegal Cash? Indians Return Almost All Banned Notes

  • RBI annual report shows banks received 15.3 trillion rupees
  • Central bank paid 500 bln rupees to government as dividend
Photographer: Bloomberg Creative Photos/Bloomberg
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to weed out black money through a ban on high-value currency notes haven’t yielded the desired results.

Of the 15.4 trillion rupees ($218 billion) of cash in circulation that was invalidated on Nov. 8, 2016, the government estimated about 5 trillion rupees wouldn’t be returned to banks because it was stashed illegally to avoid tax.