The modern rupee is subdivided into 100 paise (singular paisa) though this division is now theoretical; as of 30 June 2011, coin denominations of less than 50 paise ceased to be legal tender. Bank notes are available in nominal values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 rupees. Coins of the rupee are available in 1, 2, 5 and 10. Paise coins of the rupee have nominal values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50, but lower denominations are now rarely seen.
The Indian rupee symbol (officially adopted 2010) is derived from the Devanagari consonant "र" (Ra) with an added horizontal bar. The symbol can also be derived from the Latin consonant "R" by removing the vertical line, and adding two horizontal bars (like the symbols for the Japanese Yen and the Euro). The first series of coins with the rupee symbol was launched on 8 July 2011.
Etymology
रुपये (rupaye) in Marathi,
ರೂಪಾಯಿ (rūpāyi) in Kannada and Tulu,
ਰੁਪਈਆ (rupiā) in Punjabi,
రూపాయి (rūpāyi) in Telugu,
ரூபாய் (rūbāi) in Tamil,
રૂપિયો (rupiyo) in Gujarati,
रूपैयाँ(rupaiyaN) in Nepali and
രൂപ (rūpā) in Malayalam.
টাকা (taka) in Bengali
However, in Assam Valley, West Bengal, Tripura, Mizoram and Orissa, the Indian rupee is officially known by names derived from the word टङ्क (Tanka) which means money.[4] Thus, the rupee is called টকা (tôka) in Assamese, টাকা (Taka) in Bengali and ଟଙ୍କା (Tanka) in Oriya. The amount and the word "rupee" is accordingly written on Indian banknotes in several Indian languages.
Symbol
Indian rupee sign
On March 5, 2009 the Indian government announced a contest to create a symbol for the rupee. During the year 2010's Union Budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee mentioned that the proposed symbol would reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture. Five symbols were shortlisted, and the Cabinet selected the definitive symbol created by son of DMK leader Udaya Kumar. on July 15, 2010. The symbol is derived from the Devanagari letter ‘र’ with an additional horizontal line. The parallel lines at the top (with white space between them) make an allusion to the tricolor and also depict an equality sign which symbolizes the nation's desire to reduce economic disparity. The Indian government will try to adopt the symbol within six months in the country and globally within 18 to 24 months. Before the adoption of the symbol, the most commonly used symbols for the rupee were Rs, Re or if the text was in an Indian language, then an appropriate abbreviation in that language. The official rupee sign is included in Unicode from version 6.0, which was released on October 11, 2010. The content ( ₹ <-- rupee symbol) inside the braces would only be visible if your computer have the updated version of Unicode Installed. Ubuntu 10.10 was the first operating system to include this version of Unicode.
The selection process has been challenged under the Right to Information Act in the Delhi High Court. The petitioner, Rakesh Kumar, was a participant on the competition, described the process as "full of discrepancies" and "flawed", and named the Finance Ministry and the chairman of Indian Rupee Symbol Selection Committee as respondents.
On March 31, 2011 the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Sanjiv Khanna of Delhi High Court in their judgement allowed Right to Information (RTI) activist Mr. Rakesh Kumar Singh to file Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against “Indian Rupee symbol selection process”.
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Numeral system
Counting and numbering in Indian sub-continent although based on the decimal system is unlike western cultures; after a thousand the next major figure is not a million (thousand x thousand) but a lakh (hundred x thousand) or 100,000; after this the next is not a billion (thousand x thousand x thousand)[going by American English definition], but a crore (hundred x hundred x thousand) or 1,00,00,000 in numerical form. Therefore in Indian English, values greater than or equal to hundred thousand Indian rupees are spoken of, written and counted in terms of lakhs (one lakh = hundred thousand), and crores (one crore = ten million).
For example, the amount 3,25,84,729.25 is read as three crore(s), twenty-five lakh(s), eighty-four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-nine rupees and twenty-five paise. The use of million or billion, as is standard in American or British English, is not common and sometimes cause confusion to the ill informed and can lead to mis-translations and consequential problems.
History of the rupee
India was one of the earliest issuers of coins (circa 6th century BCE). The first "rupee" is believed to have been introduced by Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545), based on a ratio of 40 copper pieces (paisa) per rupee. Among the earliest issues of paper rupees were those by the Bank of Hindustan (1770–1832), the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1773–75, established by Warren Hastings) and the Bengal Bank (1784–91), amongst others. Until 1815, the Madras Presidency also issued a currency based on the panam, with 12 panams equal to the rupee.
Historically, the rupee, derived from the Sanskrit word raupya, which means silver, was a silver coin. This had severe consequences in the nineteenth century, when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the U.S. and various European colonies resulted in a decline in the relative value of silver to gold. Suddenly the standard currency of India could not buy as much from the outside world. This event was known as "the fall of the rupee".
India was not affected by the imperial order-in-council of 1825 that attempted to introduce the British sterling coinage to the British colonies. British India at that time was controlled by the British East India Company. The silver rupee continued as the currency of India throughout the entire period of the British Raj and beyond. In 1835, British India set itself firmly upon a mono-metallic silver standard based on the rupee. His decision was influenced by a letter, written in the year 1805, by Lord Liverpool that extolled the virtues of mono-metallism.
Following the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the British government took direct control of British India. Since 1851, gold sovereigns were being produced in large numbers at the Royal Mint branch in Sydney, New South Wales. In the year 1864 in an attempt to make the British gold sovereign become the 'imperial coin', the treasuries in Bombay and Calcutta were instructed to receive gold sovereigns. These gold sovereigns however never left the vaults. As was realized in the previous decade in Canada and the next year in Hong Kong, existing habits are hard to replace. Just as the British government had finally given up any hopes of replacing the rupee in India with the pound sterling, it simultaneously realized, and for the same reasons, that they could not easily replace the silver dollar in the Straits Settlements with the Indian rupee, as had been the desire of the British East India Company.
Since the great silver crisis of 1873, a growing number of nations had been adopting the gold standard, however the Indian currency system maintained its silver-standard tradition, which remained until it was replaced by a basket of commodities and currencies in the late twentieth century.
The Indian rupee replaced the Danish Indian rupee in 1845, the French Indian rupee in 1954 and the Portuguese Indian escudo in 1961. Following independence in 1947, the Indian rupee replaced all the currencies of the previously autonomous states. Some of these states had issued rupees equal to those issued by the British (such as the Travancore rupee). Other currencies included the Hyderabad rupee and the Kutch kori. Nominal value during British rule, and the first decade of independence:
1 damidi(pie) = 0.520833 paise (1/12 Anna)
1 kani(pice) = 1.5625 paise (1/4 Anna)
1 paraka = 3.125 paise (1/2 Anna)
1 anna = 6.25 paise (1 Anna)
1 beda = 12.5 paise (2 Anna)
1 pavala = 25 paise (4 Anna)
1 artharupee = 50 paise (8 Anna)
1 rupee = 100 paise (16 Anna)
In 1957, decimalisation occurred and the rupee was divided into 100 naye paise (Hindi for "new paise"). In 1964, the initial "naye" was dropped. Many still refer to 25, 50 and 75 paise as 4, 8 and 12 annas respectively, not unlike the usage of "bit" in American English for ⅛ dollar.
In East Africa, Arabia, and Mesopotamia the Rupee and its subsidiary coinage was current at various times. The usage of the Rupee in East Africa extended from Somalia in the north, to as far south as Natal. In Mozambique the British India rupees were overstamped, and in Kenya the British East Africa Company minted the rupee and its fractions as well as pice. The rise in the price of silver immediately after the First World War caused the rupee to rise in value to two shillings sterling. In 1920 in British East Africa, the opportunity was then taken to introduce a new florin coin, hence bringing the currency into line with sterling. Shortly after that, the Florin was split into two East African shillings. This assimilation to sterling did not however happen in British India itself. In Somalia the Italian colonial authority minted 'rupia' to exactly the same standard, and called the pice 'besa'.
The rupee in the Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were originally an outlier of the British East India Company. The Spanish dollar had already taken hold in the Straits Settlements by the time the British arrived in the nineteenth century, however, the East India Company tried to introduce the rupee in its place. These attempts were resisted by the locals, and by 1867 when the British government took over direct control of the Straits Settlements from the East India Company, attempts to introduce the rupee were finally abandoned.
International use
With Partition, the Pakistani rupee came into existence, initially using Indian coins and Indian currency notes simply overstamped with "Pakistan". In previous times, the Indian rupee was an official currency of other countries, including Aden, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Trucial States, Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, the Seychelles, and Mauritius.
The Indian government introduced the Gulf rupee, also known as the Persian Gulf rupee (XPGR), as a replacement for the Indian rupee for circulation exclusively outside the country with the Reserve Bank of India [Amendment] Act, 1 May 1959. This creation of a separate currency was an attempt to reduce the strain put on India's foreign reserves by gold smuggling. After India devalued the rupee on 6 June 1966, those countries still using it – Oman, Qatar, and the Trucial States (which became the United Arab Emirates in 1971) – replaced the Gulf rupee with their own currencies. Kuwait and Bahrain had already done so in 1961 and 1965 respectively.
The Bhutanese ngultrum is pegged at par with the Indian rupee, and both currencies are accepted in Bhutan. The Indian rupee is also accepted in towns in Nepal which lie near the border with India. However, Indian Rupee denominations of 500 and 1000 are banned in Nepal.[citation needed] Rupee is the currency of Sri Lanka also.
Coins
The three Presidencies established by the British East India Company (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) each issued their own coinages up to 1835. All three issued rupees together with fractions down to ⅛ and 1⁄16 rupee in silver. Madras also issued 2 rupees coins.
Copper denominations were more varied. Bengal issued 1 pie, ½, 1 and 2 paise. Bombay issued 1 pie, ¼, ½, 1, 1½, 2 and 4 paise. In Madras, there were copper coins for 2, 4 pies, 1, 2 and 4 paisa, with the first two denominated as ½ and 1 dub or 1⁄96 and 1⁄48 rupee. Note that Madras also issued the Madras fanam until 1815.
All three Presidencies issued gold mohurs and fractions of mohurs, including 1⁄16, ⅛, ¼ and ½ in Bengal, 1⁄15 (a gold rupee) and ⅓ (pancia) in Bombay and ¼, ⅓ and ½ in Madras.
In 1835, a single coinage for the EIC was introduced. It consisted of copper 1⁄12, ¼ and ½ anna, silver ¼, ½ and 1 rupee and gold 1 and 2 mohurs. In 1841, silver 2 annas were added, followed by copper ½ pice in 1853. The coinage of the EIC continued to be issued until 1862, even after the Company had been taken over by the Crown.
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