It is customary to give a gift of crisp paper money along with Tika blessings during the festival. And in order to ease the annual rush for new banknotes, the central bank brings out fresh paper money this time of the year.

NRB said that it would be issuing notes worth Rs 40-45 billion this year. In the last fiscal year, the note issue amounted to Rs 30 billion.

The central bank plans to issue new paper money in a package worth Rs 22,000 each in the Kathmandu valley. The package consists of two bundles each of notes of Rs 5, Rs 10 and Rs 20 denominations and one bundle each of notes of Rs 50 and Rs 100 denominations.

“The regional offices outside the valley have been authorised to exchange the notes as per the needs of the people,” said Manamohan Kumar Shrestha, spokesperson of the central bank.

In the valley, NRB will issue the notes from its offices at Thapathali. Its regional offices are located in Biratnagar, Janakpur, Birgunj, Bhairahawa, Pokhara, Nepalgunj and Dhangadhi.

Likewise, the central bank will exchange notes from its Note Fund remaining at Rastriya Banijya Bank and Nepal Bank Limited. These two banks will start distributing the banknotes from the fund and report to NRB, said Shrestha.

He added that the central bank would soon distribute new notes to banks and financial institutions too as they had started asking for them. They will get

the notes after assessing their requirements. Currently, the paper money circulating in the market is worth Rs 262 billion, said NRB.