New 20-rupee coins have been introduced even though members of public till now could not be comfortable with 10-rupee coins having been introduced several years back. It is true that life of smaller denomination notes is comparatively smaller. But considering non-popularity of coins of rupees-ten (and now rupees-twenty), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and central government should rather work on introducing much-awaited plastic currency in these denominations as was announced long back by the then Union Minister of Finance Namo Narain Meena on 12.03.2013 in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
On the contrary, one-rupee notes re-started just for bureaucratic craze of bearing their signatures should be discontinued to be printed as these are not even seen by members of public ever since these were re-issued on 06.03.2015 after a gap of two decades when these were discontinued to be printed in 1990s. System should be to either issue coin or note for a particular denomination.
Coins should be minted only in denominations of rupees one and five discontinuing even two-rupee coins, because shopkeepers generally do not return one-rupee coins and instead force unwanted items like candies. Coin-bags in each denomination should be uniformly of 2000 coins unlike present system of 2500 coins in coin-bags of rupee one, and 2000 coins in coin-bags of rupees five or ten. This will avoid confusion regarding number of coins in coin-bags because printing of such number on gunny coin-bags is not clear. For consumers, smaller coin-packs with hundred coins each in denominations of rupees one and five should be ensured to be always available in plenty in all branches of public and private sector banks.
MADHU AGRAWAL