New banknotes in India may carry images of personalities that were never seen on Indian currency.
Thus far, the Indian currency notes only carry image of Mahatma Gandhi – father of the nation.
However, according to reports, things may change soon.
According to reports, India’s finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are considering using images of Rabrindranath Tagore and APJ Abdul Kalam on a new series of banknotes.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with contextual modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
On the other hand, APJ Abdul Kalam was an Indian aerospace scientist who also served as the 11th president of India from 2002 to 2007.
He is known as the “Missile Man of India” for his work on development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology.
Kalam was widely referred to as the “People’s President”.
Why introduce new faces on bank notes?
If reports are to be believed that images of Rabindranath Tagore and APJ Abdul Kalam would be introduced in the banknotes, this will be in line with the system in the United States.
In United States, different denominations of dollars carry portraits of some of the Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton and also several presidents, including Abraham Lincoln.
According to a report, the RBI and the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL), which is under the finance ministry, are learnt to have sent two separate sets of samples of Gandhi, Tagore and Kalam watermarks to IIT-Delhi Emeritus Professor Dilip T Shahani.
Sahani has been told to choose from the two sets and present them for final consideration by the government.