Nagpur: One sad side effect of demonetization is people have lost faith in money. When with one stroke the much treasured and valued Rs. 500/ and Rs. 1000/ became invalid, now people are getting suspicious about the ‘beautiful’ Rs.10 coin too.
It is not just Sonam Gupta who is ‘bewafa’ – hard money has become suspect too.
“Kya pata kal kaun ‘chalna’ band ho jayega?” ( Who knows what will not be accepted tomorrow?)
Today’s Rate
Sat 16 Nov. 2024
In this suspicious mood, there are many reasons why the 10 ka coin is under the scanner of ordinary Indians.
If you scrutinize different Rs 10 coins you will observe that there are differences between some coins. While the head of the coin has the national emblem of ‘Ashok Stambh’ with the logo ‘satyamev jayate’ in every case, the tail can have different designs.
One coin, has the picture of the Indian Parliament engraved on it with the title -60 years of the Parliament of India , in Hindi and in English, others just have the figure 10 in Roman. And slashes on top. The slashes can be either 10 or 15 in number.
These differences are making people wary. There is a belief floating around that coins with 15 slashes are ‘counterfeit’. So prevalent has this doubt become that some shop keepers are refusing them – in fact to be on the safer side, they are refusing ALL Rs. 10 coins. This has led to more fear psychosis about money that is valid and that could become invalid any day. (Probably some utterances of RBI and or Finance Ministry officials that they may be introducing Rs. 20/ and even Rs. 50 coins is adding fuel to the fire).
Getting knowledge of this, the RBI Governor Arjit Patel has made it very clear that the Rs. 10 coin is perfectly valid and there are no plans to ‘ban’ it.
Even Sachin Kurve, Nagpur’s Divn. Collector has made it clear that all these coins are legal and valid, the government has no plans to ban them and shop keepers are urged to not refuse them.
Regarding some coins being counterfeit, it has been pointed out that the coins which have two kinds of metal in the design are very complicate to manufacture and the cost if anyone were to replicate them would be Rs. 11/ per coin at least. They would have to be sold at Rs. 3 or 4 for illegal trade in them to flourish.
Who will bear this loss? To what end?
The Collector was not available to reply to NT’s question about why the different number of slashes/ strokes. We messaged the question to him but did not receive a reply. Probably he does not know the answer either!
Meanwhile enjoy spending the coin – if you are ‘rich’ enough to have it on you. And shop keepers, as it is your custom is dwindling – don’t turn away this coin and reduce your market further!!
