For a common man, soiled notes of rupee one, two, five and ten are an every day nuisance. Due to rising costs of day to day commodities like vegetables and fruits which can not be purchased from small venders by using a credit/debit card, even fifty rupee notes are getting soiled very soon. A lot of money is thus lost due to badly mutilated, torn notes, which even some banks refuse to exchange.
In addition these soiled notes carry bacteria and germs that can cause diseases like TB, pneumonia, peptic ulcers and gastroenteritis. Due to our dirty habit of using saliva to wet our fingers while counting a wad of notes, these germs enter our mouth and make some of us with poor immunity ill.
Soiled notes of these low denominations may soon be a thing of past as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is planning to introduce Rs 10 plastic currency notes whose life span would be 4-5 times more than the currently issued paper currency notes.
And as a bonus, it would be almost impossible to counterfeit them.
Besides, the new notes could be washed easily and therefore would be cleaner than current paper notes. The Government of India has already introduced a ten rupee coin to supplement the demand for the ten rupee notes.
To make a beginning RBI has decided to introduce 100 crore pieces of Rs 10 plastic notes, for which it has floated a global tender.
The RBI has also been receiving several queries about the possibility of introducing plastic currency notes to replace the existing paper notes, even in the higher denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 500 Rs 100. Going by the increasing incidents of circulating fake notes, RBI may consider introduction of higher denomination plastic notes soon.
Reserve Bank of India has been carrying out experiments with plastic currency notes for some time. They are being tested in laboratories to see if they could withstand Indian hot and humid climate and the unusual ways in which not-so-educated and even educated people handle presently issued currency notes.
Plastic currency if handled carefully and correctly may offer a durable alternative. They are Eco-friendly because no one is going to throw plastic currency notes into garbage for cows to swallow and recyclers to make cheap pots and shoes out of them.
The performance of plastic currency notes is far better than paper notes. If they get soiled they can be washed. If left in pockets accidentally and washed, they do not develop wrinkles. Finally after the end of their useful life, they can be recycled and made into pots and bins.
As a birthday gift to the nation, in the year of Australian bicentennial (1988), the Government of Australia introduced ten dollar plastic currency notes for the first time in the whole world. It took them more than 20 years to bring out plastic currency notes.
Earlier many other small countries like Haiti, Costa Rica and the Isle of Man had experimented with plastic currency notes using Tyrek; a paper like material made of high-density polyethylene or polythene - the common plastic used in making carry bags. However, the experiments failed as the printing began to flake off very soon.
The technology in printing plastic notes involves highly sophisticated processes generally used in the manufacture of integrated circuits - chips for computers. Plastic sheets used in printing notes are much thinner than paper used in printing currency notes, and therefore, they could be printed in a much finer print.
Letters only 0.25 mm high could be printed very easily. These are far too fine to be duplicated by colour copying machines. Plastic sheets can also be made clear; another way to defeat colour copying machines. And finally many other security features could be incorporated in plastic sheets used in printing currency notes.
However, not until 1988, was a method found to produce long lasting plastic money that could be printed on the existing printing machines then in use for printing paper currency.
The notes are made by taking rolls of the biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) (another plastic) about 75 microns thick (0.075 mm). This greatly enhances the durability of the banknotes.
This is a common plastic and is made in abundance in India.
The plastic sheets pass through a four step process that makes them opaque as a background for printing ink and also add a shadow mark similar to water mark in paper notes. The rolls are then sliced into sheets, which could be printed using the same press as for paper currency.
New inks that adhere firmly to plastic sheets were developed and used. A raised illustration or intaglio is printed under pressure using magnetic ink. The result is an image that can felt by fingers as well as detected magnetically. For the high denomination notes - a greater source of attraction for counterfeiters - there are additional security measures, known as an optically variable device.
It is an image formed by tiny ridges in ultra-fine aluminium foil that acts like diffraction grating scattering white light into its component seven colours as it happens with a compact disk (CD) is exposed to sunlight.
The effect is somewhat like a hologram found on share certificates and bonds and many other items these days. The image is clear, visible from either side of the note and it is far more difficult to copy than even a hologram. Finally the notes are numbered and, given a protective coat of transparent varnish.
This also reduces the development of static electric charge common with plastic sheets. And all this is done at a speed of 8,000 sheets an hour.
One sheet contains 8 currency notes. The cost of making them is almost the same as paper notes, except for optically variable device used in higher denomination notes.
As of 2009, seven countries have converted fully to polymer banknotes: Australia, Bermuda, Brunei, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Romania, and Vietnam.
Paper currency was introduced in India in the 18th century when some parts of India were ruled by English East India Company (EICO). 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), the Bengal Bank (1784-91), amongst others.
Queen Victoria took over EICO in 1858. Currency notes carrying portraits of Victoria and George V were then issued. The Reserve Bank of India was formally inaugurated in 1935. The bank issued the first five rupee note bearing the portrait of George VI in 1938. Other high denomination noted followed soon. The George VI series continued till 1947 and thereafter till 1950 when post-independence notes were issued by Government of Independent India. What followed is known to most of us.
