Sri Lanka intensifies ‘keeping currency notes clean campaign’
Sri Lanka is intensifying the ‘keeping currency note clean campaign’ with the launch of a countrywide programme to create awareness among the people through the banking network in the island, a senior official of the Central Bank (CB)’s currency management division said.
The CB has issued a directive to all banks in the island and its branches on the need to keep currency notes clean among their customers by distributing leaflets and explaining the importance of having good quality currency notes in circulation.
People have been requested to hand over dirty currency notes to nearby bank branches for new notes enabling the CB to destroy the old ones, he added.
The CB continuously supplies new and fit (serviceable) currency notes through the banking system to meet public demand while withdrawing soiled notes out of circulation through the same system.
Unserviceable notes cannot be re-issued to the public for circulation and the CB is compelled to destroy all these notes through a shredding machine and set on fire later, under bank supervision. The Bank, which every year destroys millions of rupees worth of notes because of this problem, recently renewed a directive asking the public not to accept willfully damaged or disfigured currency notes, a senior Bank official said. The CB receives an average 1,000 damaged notes per day.
A pilot project aimed at creating awareness on clean currency notes and its importance to the country as well as to collect unserviceable currency notes from the people in the area will be implemented in the Matara District on March 17-21.
“It is necessary to use notes with care, placing notes without folding or crushing in wallets/ purses/ envelopes according to the order of denomination for ease of handling, acquiring the habit of transacting in clean notes, depositing unfit notes in bank accounts or exchanging unfit notes for fit notes from banks and keeping notes clean as it is a reflection of our culture, attitude and the level of prosperity,” the Bank official said.