THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Did you imagine it or did the man at the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) billing section give a longer-than-usual look at the Rs 1,000 note you just handed over? In all probability, he did.Various agencies that engage in public transactions on a daily basis have upped vigil against counterfeit notes. Note checking machines have started appearing in more section offices of the KSEB, and the Friends Janasevana Kendram here asked the State IT Mission to provide it with one. Counterfeits had become the hot topic with the police unearthing a number of rackets. While banks are relatively better equipped to detect fakes, it is not the same with other agencies, although there is the Reserve Bank of India-trained staff. Recently, the KSEB Vellayambalam section office here armed itself with a machine after it received a fake Rs 500 note. “All important section offices have the machines. In others, the number of a suspicious note as well as the details of the customer are noted down. So, in case the banks later identify it as a counterfeit, we can trace the person,” KSEB member (Finance) S Venugopal said.“We’ve been using the machines for some time now,” he said. At the KSEB and also at the Kerala Water Authority (KWA), the decision to arm the section offices with the machines can be taken at the division-level. Currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations fall under the ‘most examined’ category.“If we identify a note as fake, we inform the customer and ask him to give us another note. We don’t have the provision to destroy it,” a KSEB staffer said. The Friends Janasevana Kendram at Palayam, which handles transactions for various departments, had written to the State IT Mission requesting a machine. “We had a machine earlier which used UV rays. But it is defunct now,” said Friends Janasevana Kendram project manager Devapalan.
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