Interesting Things About Indian Rupee

Indian currency is as historic as the Indian civilization. Currency in the form of punch-marked coins existed even before Christ. Coinage can be traced back to as early as the 6th century BC, in the earliest of civilizations in India. 
Every nation evocation their currency with a specific name, and we know our currency as Rupee. Do you know that Rupee word originated from Sanskrit “rupyakam” which means silver coin. In India Reserve Bank of India controls the issuance of currency. Lets check out some amazing and interesting facts about our Indian Rupee.

Indian Rupee

Some Interesting Facts 


1. As we all know that Rs.1000/- is largest/ biggest denomination of today, but before independence — 10,000 and 5000 rupees currency notes were existed. RBI was demonetize all such notes in 1938, and reissued it in 1954 and once again demonetized in 1978.

5000 Rupees

2. On Indian Rupees you can’t find these “I, J, O, X, Y, Z” alphabets / letters on the number panel. As in these case RBI only have twenty alphabets are used as insets. For security reasons, Reserve Bank of India doesn’t reveal which inset alphabet/ letters are assigned for which printing press.

3. Did you know that life of a banknote is only 9-10 months average ?

4. Our Indian currency have Braille signs to help the visually challenged, which gives hope to the blind –identify currency note. There were identification mark’s on the left side of banknote, which have different shapes for 1000, 500, 100, 50, 20 and 10 as Diamond, Circle, Triangle, Rectangle, Square and None respectively.

5..Currency has existed in the form of coinage in India since the 6th century BC.  The Ancient, the medieval and the Mughal period all used currency in the form of coinage. The most notable was Sher Shah Suri's Rupiya, which became the precursor of the modern rupee

6.  50 paise coins are still in circulation. They are called small coins while the other denominations are known as rupee coins.

7. The Reserve Bank of India was formally inaugurated in 1935 and was empowered to issue Government of India notes. The first note issued by the RBI was a five rupee note bearing King George VI's portrait.

8. Paper money was first issued in the late eighteenth century. Bank of Hindostan, General Bank in Bengal and the Bengal Bank are the first banks to have issued paper currency

9.The one rupee note was the first banknote printed by independent India.

10. Mahatma Gandhi (MG) series notes introduced in 1996 are being replaced by the MG series 2005 notes with some additional security features. Pre-2005 banknotes can be exchanged at any bank branch till June 30, 2015

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