"Around 1.1 billion pieces valuing Rs 183 billion of soiled notes of various denominations during the financial year (2009-10) were shredded," said chief spokesperson of the Central Bank here on Thursday.
Talking to APP he said soiled notes are first cancelled and then destroyed through shredding machines under CCTV surveillance.
General public can exchange their soiled notes with good quality notes from any commercial bank or designated offices of SBP, he added.
SBP has issued instructions to commercial banks under the Clean Note Policy (CNP) to issue good quality bank notes to the general public/stakeholders etc. Commercial banks are also required to deposit the soiled notes received from general public/stakeholders to the nearest field office of SBP or Chests branch of National Bank of Pakistan.
Chest branches are designated branches of NBP authorized to transact treasury function on behalf of State Bank. Bank notes are only cancelled and destroyed/shredded by SBP which is the sole authority for the purpose.
Referring to a question about reports of circulation of counterfeit currency, he said counterfeiting of currency notes is a global issue and Pakistan is also no exception to this menace.
The understanding that currency dealers collect soiled notes and note down the numbers of the currency notes, thereafter reproduce the currency note with same number is not correct, he clarified.
He said security features, such as see through, security threads, watermarks (Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah's portrait), latent image, anti-copy / anti-scanning line patterns in our new currency note series are in place to minimize the chances of producing or printing of counterfeiting by unscrupulous elements.
The prime responsibility to prevent the circulation of counterfeit currency notes rests with Law Enforcing Agencies such as FIA, Police, NAB, etc. However, State Bank was also performing its due role to curb the menace of fake currency.
New design bank note series with enhanced and latest technological security features were being issued since 2005 to make the counterfeiting more difficult, the spokesperson added.
In addition, special outreach programmes to create awareness about the security features of the currency notes, for general public, cashiers of commercial banks and other stakeholders have been conducted by field offices. So far, 220 and 170 awareness programmes were conducted across the country in the year 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 respectively, he added.
Moreover, commercial banks have been provided posters containing security features of all new design bank notes with the advice to display the same at prominent places at their branches for the awareness of general public and account holders etc.
Training has also been imparted to the officials of law enforcing agencies to identify the difference between the genuine and a counterfeit note, advanced training have been imparted to them on TOT (training of trainers) basis at the Forensic Laboratory of Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC).
A Monitoring Cell on Counterfeiting of Currency has also been constituted by State Bank of Pakistan and comprising of representatives from Police, FIA, NAB, and Finance Department of SBP to deliberate on the issue of counterfeiting of currency notes and suggest measures to minimize the cases, he maintained.