Jaitley debunks rumour of Rs2,000 notes having GPS chips

Finance minister Arun Jaitley has rubbished rumours that the Reserve Bank of India's new Rs2,000 note has a nano-GPS chip embedded in it.

"From where did you come to know this? I haven't heard of it," Jaitley said at a press conference when asked if the new Rs2,000 note issued by the RBI has a chip to enable its tracking via satellites.

A WhatsApp post that had gone viral claimed that the new Rs2,000 notes have a 'near-field GPS' or NGC chip that will be used to track them.

However, experts have rubbished the rumour, saying the move would not be technically feasible.

The message claims these notes are embedded with Nano-GPS chips, which act as a signal reflector, giving precise location coordinates of the currency in order to allow every note to be tracked. The chip is claimed to be so strong that one can track these Rs2,000 notes even if they are kept 120 metres below ground level.

It also claims the chip will also help identify if too many of these notes are kept in one place and alert the relevant authorities. Thus the government's new note will help curb corruption and discourage people from hoarding black money.

Except on reading the message, a person of average intelligence can figure out it is a hoax.

Grammatical mistakes aside, the RBI's own description for the Rs2,000 note does not mention this magnificent chip anywhere. RBI officials also dismissed these rumours as false.