It refers to media-reports that central government is going to discontinue minting of one-rupee coin because of high minting-cost of rupees 1.11. Any such decision is anti-consumer, and will tend to raise prices of many such commodities which are presently priced at rupee one. Minting-cost is one-time spent on a coin with extra long life. It is ridiculous that central government despite adverse opinion of Reserve Bank of India RBI re-introduced one-rupee note on 06.03.2015 which has high printing cost of much more than rupee one and a very short life only for bureaucratic-craze of having signature on the note which is signed by an officer of Secretary rank while notes of all other dominations bear signature of RBI governor.
Central government and RBI should produce coins only in denominations of rupee one and five discontinuing coins in denominations of rupees two and ten. Traders force unwanted items like candies etc in place of one-rupee coin forcing coin-bags of rupees two to falsely exhibit popularity of two-rupee coins. Ten-rupee coins are unpopular and people fear accepting these because of fake ten-rupee coins largely in circulation. If needed, size of one-rupee coin can be further reduced to that of earlier 10-paise coin to reduce minting-cost. Likewise size of five-rupee coins can also be reduced. Since one-rupee notes re-introduced on 06.03.2015 have never come in practical circulation and sold only on premium multiple times the face-value, further printing of one-rupee notes should be stopped with immediate effect. Existing stock of one-rupee notes may be sold as collector-item in attractive plastic-packing rather than allowing to be sold on premium by private dealers of new currency-notes and coin-bags.
MADHU AGRAWAL