Rupee gets a mark of its own

The rupee, powered by an ever-growing Indian economy, will now sport a distinct identification symbol—an amalgamation of the Devanagri ‘Ra’ and the Roman ‘R’ without the stem. It was selected at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday.

“The symbol, designed by a postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, D Udaya Kumar, was selected from among five short-listed symbols,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni told newspersons after the meeting. “It will give a distinctive character and identity to the currency and highlight the global face of the Indian economy,” she said.

Kumar’s entry was chosen from among over 3,000 designs competing for the currency symbol. A public competition was held last year for selecting the symbol. All the entries were evaluated by a three-member jury comprising experts from reputed art and design institutes. The jury selected five final entries and sent these to the government to take a decision.

While presenting the Budget for 2010-11, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said: “In the ensuing year, we intend to formalise a symbol for the Indian rupee, which reflects and captures the Indian ethos and culture.

“With this, the 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.”
The distinct symbol would also help in distinguishing the Indian currency from rupee or rupiah of countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. “The encoding of the symbol in the Indian Standards is estimated to take about six months while it might take 18 months to two years for the international community to incorporate the new symbol,” Soni said.

The symbol will feature on computer keyboards and software so that it can be printed and displayed in electronic and print media, she said. The Nasscom will approach software development companies for incorporating the rupee symbol in their operative software as a new programme or as an update.

For incorporating the symbol in the keyboards to be manufactured in India, the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology  will ask its members to make necessary changes in the production processes once the symbol is notified as a keyboard standard by the Bureau of Indian Standards.