A major drawback of council bills was that, on occasion, the Indian government simply lacked the funds to cash them, particularly after 1904. This state of affairs was partly due to the difficulties faced by the government in the early part of the period in determining the size of Treasury balances at any one time and in predicting the amount of coin that would flow back to its Treasuries, which often caused shortages of funds towards the end of the trading season. A further factor was the unpredictable nature of the Indian climate and harvests. Good crops and high exports led to unexpectedly heavy sales of council bills, and crop failure resulted in famine, low receipts and high expenditure on relief measures. Another imponderable was war. During the First World War, the Indian administration spent £200m on behalf of the UK government and had to meet £103m of council bills, sales of which had risen owing to the heavy demand and high prices paid for Indian raw materials needed for the war effort and to a series of good harvests.

The inability of the Indian Treasury to meet council bills was solved via reverse earmarking, the restriction of bill sales and loans from the GSR. The Indian government also issued larger than usual rupee loans, which offered purchasers discounts for early payment; in 1919, obtained advances from the presidency banks and issued additional currency notes; and, in 1926, raided its Post Office Savings Bank deposits.