RBI to issue Rs 200 notes from tomorrow, says they will facilitate exchange for common man

The Reserve Bank of India has said it will start issuing the Rs 200 notes from Friday (25 August) from select RBI offices and some banks. The move is widely expected to ease the shortage of lower-denomination currency bills. The notes will be in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series, bearing signature of Governor Urjit Patel. [caption id=“attachment_3968553” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] “Introduction of a new currency denomination and design is done keeping in consideration various factors like ease of transactions for the common man, replacement of soiled banknotes, inflation and the need for combating counterfeiting,” the RBI said in a press release on Thursday. Explaining the rationale behind introducing a new denomination, it said in the Indian currency system Rs 200 is a missing denomination. “…There is a logical need to introduce the missing denomination of Rs 200, which will make the present currency system more efficient. Provision of the new denomination, therefore, would facilitate exchange, particularly for the common man who deals with denominations at the lower end,” it said. Further, detailing the salient features of the notes, it said: “The new denomination has Motif of Sanchi Stupa on the reverse, depicting the country’s cultural heritage. The base colour of the note is Bright Yellow. The note has other designs, geometric patterns aligning with the overall colour scheme, both at the obverse and reverse.” Here are the other key specifications of the note, as detailed by the RBI: 1) See through register with denominational numeral 200 2) Latent image with denominational numeral 200 3) Denominational numeral 200 in Devnagari 4) Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the centre 5) Micro letters ‘RBI’, ‘Bharat’ (in Hindi), ‘India’ and ‘200’ 6) Windowed security thread with inscriptions Bharat in Hindi and RBI with colour shift. Colour of the thread changes from green to blue when the note is tilted 7) Denominational numeral with rupee symbol, Rs 200 in colour changing ink (green to blue) on bottom right For visually impaired 8) Intaglio or raised printing of Mahatma Gandhi portrait, Ashoka Pillar emblem, raised Identification mark H with micro-text Rs 200, four angular bleed lines with two circles in between the lines both on the right and left sides. On the reverse side 9) Year of printing of the note on the left 10) Swachh Bharat logo with slogan 11) Language panel 12) Motif of Sanchi Stupa 13) Denominational numeral 200 in Devnagari Dimension 14) Dimension of the banknote will be 66 mm × 146 mm