1 billion plastic notes of Rs 10 denomination later this year

NEW DELHI: One billion plastic notes of Rs 10 denomination will be introduced on a field trial basis in five cities in the second half of 2014, Parliament was informed on Friday. “One billion plastic notes of the denomination of Rs10 will be introduced in a field trail in five cities selected for their geographical and climatic diversity.

These cities are Kochi, Mysore, Jaipur, Shimla and Bhubaneswar…The field trial is expected to be launched in the latter half of 2014,” Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. Cracking down on the menace of counterfeit currency, the RBI on January 23 ordered that all series of notes issues prior to 2005 would be acceptable for monetary transaction only till March 31. Plastic notes have an average life span of about five years and are difficult to imitate. On an average, one out of five paper notes in circulation (over 20% ) gets disposed of every year after getting soiled. Also, currency notes made of plastic are cleaner than paper notes.

Plastic notes were first introduced in Australia to safeguard against counterfeiting of currency. These are now already in use across a number of other countries, including Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Fiji, Brunei, Papua New Guinea and Romania.

Replying to a separate question, Meena said about 3.33 lakh fake currency notes were seized in 2013 with a face value of Rs17.64 crore.

In 2012, 6.66 lakh fake notes were seized (face value ofRs34.58 crore), 7 lakh ( face value of Rs31.46 crore) in 2011 and 5.44 lakh (face valueRs23.86 crore) in 2010. The finance ministry, home ministry, RBI, security and intelligence agencies of central and state governments as well as CBI are working in tandem to thwart the illegal activities related to fake currencies, he said. He further said that the NIA has been empowered to investigate and prosecute offences related to fake currency. Meena said the government has also formed a Terror Funding and Fake Currency Cell in NIA to focus on investigations and the legal system has been strengthened to declare smuggling and circulation of high quality fake Indian paper currency, coin or any other material as a terrorist act.