The Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee announced in his Budget speech in Lok Sabha  that it is proposed to formalize a symbol for the Indian Rupee in the ensuing years. The proposed symbol will appropriately reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture.

With this, Indian Rupee will join the select club of currencies such as the US Dollar, British Pound Sterling, Euro and Japanese Yen that have a clear distinguishing identity, said the Finance Minister.

Very soon, the Indian Rupee too will get a distinct identity — an identification symbol — like the world’s major currencies (Dollar, Pound Sterling, Yen and the Euro) have.

The Indian government had announced a competition in March 2009  inviting creative designs from Indian residents to represent the rupee in a simple form.




The finance ministry guidelines stated that the symbol should represent the historical and cultural ethos of the country. It should be applicable to a standard keyboard and has to be in the Indian national language script or a visual representation of it. The size of the final design should not be smaller than 232 square cm (36 sq inches).

Five designs were short-listed from over 25,000 applications received from across the country. The short-listed candidates made a presentation on the design in December and the winning design is set to create history in March.

The five selected designs are simple, easy to write and are designed to appeal to the Indian and international community. Some of these designs reflect the Devanagari script.

The finalists are not allowed to reveal the details of their design till the results are declared, expected in March 2010.

FOR MORE READING ON UNION BUDGET CLICK THE FOLLOWING

SUMMARY OF UNION BUDGET 2010-11

HIGHLIGHTS OF GENERAL BUDGET 2010-11