Very soon, India will be using plastic currency

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Very soon, India will be using plastic currency The government, in parliament confirmed that it has decided to print plastic currency notes and procurement of material has started.
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"It has been decided to print banknotes based on plastic or polymer substrate. The process of procurement has been initiated," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply in Lok Sabha to a query whether Reserve Bank of India proposes to print plastic currency notes in place of paper ones.

The RBI has been looking forward to this move for a very long time.

In February 2014, the government had informed Parliament that one billion plastic notes of Rs 10 denomination would be introduced in a field trial in five cities selected for their geographical and climatic diversity. The selected cities were Kochi, Mysore, Jaipur, Shimla and Bhubaneswar.

The motive behind this move is that a plastic note has an average life span of about five years and is difficult to imitate and currency notes made of plastic are cleaner than paper ones. Such notes were first introduced in Australia to safeguard against counterfeiting.

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Meghwal alss said that it was informed by RBI in December 2015 that they have received some banknotes of Rs 1,000 without having security thread which were printed at Currency Note Press (CNP), Nashik, on paper supplied by Security Paper Mill (SPM), Hoshangabad.

An enquiry has been initiated by Security Printing and Minting Corporation (SPMCIL) and the units involved (SPM and CNP), he added.

"Major penalty chargeshehas been issued to the personnel concerned. Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated as per departmental rules," the minister said.

He said that further actions to strengthen quality procedure and online inspection system in manufacturing process and special training has been given to the persons concerned to avoid such types of mistakes in future are being taken.

"Additional inspections have been introduced to ensure defect-free production," he said