Reserve Bank Steps up Vigilance Along Myanmar Border

By Surajit Khaund

Guwahati, Feb 7 : Worried over circulation of fake currency notes in the region, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has geared up vigilance along the international border.

“Myanmar has emerged as a new centre for pushing in of counterfeit notes into the Northeast,” BB Sangma ,banking ombudsman of Northeastern States of RBI told this correspondent today. He further said that this region shares a huge stretch of international border and therefore banks have been asked to remain extra vigilant to contain the menace.

“We are regularly sharing intelligence inputs with the security agencies guarding the border and the RBI has already launched a series of awareness camps in this regard,” he informed.

Sangma who was also working with Interpol on a special assignment for a brief period, observed that some foreign agencies are working to destroy the Indian economy by circulating the counterfeit notes. “This is of course a major problem in the region,” he said and sought help from the people to contain the problem.

It may be recalled that security forces in Mizoram recently busted a fake currency racket and arrested three people, including a woman and seized fake Indian currency with a face value of Rs.164,000 along with a laptop, computers and court stamp papers.

Four Northeastern states – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur Mizoram and Nagaland - share a 1,300-km border with Myanmar. The porous international border is also favoring the people engaged in the fake currency racket to run the business freely.

Providing information, the senior official of RBI said that bank branches located in the bordering areas in the region have already been provided required feedback to detect the fake notes. “We organize trainings for the other banks in this regard,” he said.

Replying to a question on financial outreach programme initiated by the RBI, he informed that nearly 8000 accounts were opened under the new programme and the response from the people has been very positive so far.

“The financial outreach programme is aimed at reaching out to the poor people living in the remote areas in the region. This will definitely help in improving the credit deposit ratio (CDR) in the Northeast,” Sangma added. He also informed that RBI is planning to introduce mobile banking facility in the Northeast. “We are discussing the matter with various agencies to implement the mobile banking service,” he said.