The central bank has changed its policy on disposal of discarded notes, allowing its branch offices to destroy such banknotes with the help of city corporations or municipalities.
The policy on worn-out banknote disposal came to the fore on Tuesday as the people discovered huge small parts of abandoned banknotes in a water body in Bogura's Shajahanpur upazila in recent days.
Under the revised policy, the Bogura office of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) started the process of disposing of such notes with the local municipality's help.
The Bogura office delivered 240 out of 1,900 sacks of abandoned notes to the local municipal officials for disposal.
"We've started the process of abandoning the patched notes in line with our higher authority's instruction," said a senior official of the BB's Bogura office.
The BB's Khulna office also disposed of such notes with the help of the local city corporation in July last, he told the FE on phone.
When contacted, a senior official at the BB headquarters said, "We're still destroying all the discarded notes using chimneys set up on our office premises."
But branch offices of the regulator have stopped using chimneys for burning the worn-out notes under the revised policy following instructions from the environment department, according to the official.
"We're now thinking of importing electronic chimneys to do the job protecting the environment," the central banker explained.
Talking to the FE, former BB governor Salehuddin Ahmed said discarded notes should be destroyed by the central bank itself, not taking cooperation from other authorities like city corporations or municipalities.
"BB should protect the dignity of banknotes," the former governor noted.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
