KARACHI: The State Bank provided fresh currency notes of various denominations aggregated to Rs363 billion on Eidul-Fitr 2018.

In a press release issued on Friday, the SBP said that demand for fresh currency notes has been increasing each year while it continues to print more currency notes than previous years on Eidul-Fitr.

The amount for this Eid was higher than previous year’s Rs342bn. The Rs342bn in 2016 was 44 per cent higher than supply of 2016.

The SBP provided the fresh currency notes through the SMS service (8877) operated across 132 cities through more than 1,500 commercial banks’ branches and 16 field offices of SBP.

The service was used by more than 2.2 million people before Eidul-Fitr, a 50 per cent increase from last year, said the SBP.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2018