Katmandu, October 9,

Because of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) did not create new banknotes this year to commemorate the Dashain and Tihar festivals, the number of individuals exchanging money has reduced dramatically.     
Last year, the Central Bank issued Rs 14 billion in new currency notes in the Kathmandu Valley alone, and Rs 29 billion across the country for exchange.

This year, the rate of exchange for currency notes is limited to roughly four billion rupees, over 25 billion less than the previous year. According to Basudev Bhattarai, Director of Rastra Bank Currency Management Department, this year, it is projected that roughly 2 billion notes have been issued by NRB's subordinate offices and the same amount by other banks.

The bank avoided the trouble of managing additional human resources by printing new notes. According to Bhattarai, about 1.5 billion rupees were spent last year on producing new currency notes. 

There are around 6.6 million households in the country. Despite the fact that 50 percent, or 3.3 million families, do not have access to fresh banknotes, the NRB estimates that printing notes of various denominations for half of them will cost up to 6 billion rupees. This year, the bank promoted the usage of clean currency notes rather than producing fresh ones.