P. Chidambaram was mocking the RBI for not completing the counting of currency notes 15 months after demonetisation.
New Delhi: Taking a dig at the central bank, former finance minister and veteran Congress leader, P. Chidambaram, said Sunday that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should take help from hundi collectors at the Tirupati temple to count demonetised notes faster.
“I would like to tell the RBI officials why don’t you go to hundi collectors in Tirupati? They count money faster than you,” Chidambaram said at the 84th Congress Plenary Session Sunday.
In a reply to an RTI application, the RBI had said that it is yet to count all the notes it received post-demonetisation.
The hundi collections of Tirupati
The Tirupati temple complex is one of the richest in India, receiving donations in the temple hundis or pots. The complex is managed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD).
According to a myth, Kubera loaned money to Venkateshwara (a form of the god Vishnu) for his marriage to Padmavathi. This is the loan that devotees seek to repay by dropping money, silver or gold coins into the many hundis or pots in the temple.
The hundis are five feet high, three feet wide and are draped in white cloth.
In 2017, the temple complex earned a whopping Rs 995.89 crore in donations. The temple administration even introduced an ‘e-handi’ on their website for digital donations.
TTD officials pointed out that despite the number of pilgrims decreasing after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 notes on 8 November 2016, the donations received kept rising.
The temple hundis are estimated to have processed Rs 2-3 crores per day in currency notes from devotees.
On 18 March 2018, the temple administration wrote to the RBI seeking to exchange demonetised currency notes worth Rs 25 crore, and said it was hoping for a “positive reply”.
Apart from currency notes, gold and silver coins, precious stones, jewellery, foreign currency notes and on one occasion, even an iPhone, have been received in the hundis.
Counting the hundi donations
The hundis are placed before the entrance to the inner sanctum of the temple with CCTV cameras watching from above. Security guards also patrol the area.
The counting is done by temple officials. The donations are segregated into pots by workers. Currency notes are counted by machines, put in bundles and kept in safes to be later deposited.
An estimated 1.86 lakh crore in currency notes was demonetised by the government’s announcement. According to estimates, the RBI got Rs 15.28 lakh crore in demonetised notes as on 30 June 2017. However, the RBI has still not made a formal announcement on how much currency was received.