A report said 97 per cent of the banned currency had returned to the banking system.
Six days after the December 30 deadline for banned 500 and 1,000 rupees to be deposited in commercial banks, the Reserve Bank of India said "it is still counting the returned notes."
News agency, Bloomberg, had quoted unnamed sources to report that Rs 14.97 lakh crores or 97 per cent of the banned currency had returned to the banking system. If that is true, it would suggest that the government's abrupt demonetisation drive has failed to uncover and destroy black money.
On November 8, when the government had demonetised old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, RS 15.44 lakh crores had been rendered illegal.
On Thursday, the RBI issued a statement to say "these figures would need to be reconciled with the physical cash balances to eliminate accounting errors/ possible double counts etc. RBI has already initiated this process and till this is completed any estimate may not indicate the actual numbers of the SBNs that have been returned."
The central bank said it would release the figures as early as possible but RBI Governor Urjit Patel, who has met the Finance Minister on Thursday, has declined to comment when reporters asked him outside the Finance Ministry. "No comments," Mr Patel told reporters on Thursday.
On Wednesday, when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a press conference, he too was asked the question to share how much of the old currency have been deposited in the banks. Mr Jaitley said he "would not like to speculate" and hoped that the RBI would share the data at an "appropriate time."
But on Thursday the Congress led a sharp attack. Writing in the party mouthpiece, National Herald, Congress lawmaker Jairam Ramesh argued, "If it is confirmed that 97 per cent has returned, which again no one in government has as yet denied, it means that the Prime Minister's grand theatrics in his usual style have amounted to nothing except inflicting untold misery and suffering on all sections of society but particularly farmers, farm labour, workers in the unorganised sector and labour-intensive enterprises."
Though PM Modi has been praised by experts and the public for his intent to crackdown on corruption and tax evasion, the cash shortage that followed demonetisation has been seized by the opposition to allege that it is the honest and common man rather than the corrupt rich who have been punished by the radical reform.