Security Features Include Invisible Fibre,Colour Shift Ink & Machine-Readable Micro Text
A slew of new security features such as invisible fibre, colour shift ink and machine-readable micro text are on their way to prevent counterfeiting of currency notes. The move comes amid a sharp surge in recovery of 1,000 counterfeit notes this year. The government fears that counterfeit currency could be used to fund terror groups. The security features have been selected by an inter-ministerial committee comprising representatives form RBI, finance ministry, security agencies and ministry of home affairs, a government official told ET. “The menace of circulation of counterfeit currency in the country has been assuming alarming proportions,” a Parliamentary committee said in a recent report. The government has now made a global request for qualification from manufacturers to incorporate the new security features in the currency. Among the measures proposed by the panel are security thread with magnetic properties, variation in colour when viewed from different angles, foil or stripe with magnetic properties and micro text for currency notes. These features were selected from responses received by the finance ministry to its request for security information in September. According to some estimates, eight in a million notes circulated in the country are fake. The value of fake currency seized and recovered has increased from 8.39 crore in 2006 to 23 crore in 2008. As on October 31, 21.1 crore worth of fake currency has been found. India produces 18 billion pieces of bank notes of which about 50% is high denomination notes ( 100, 500 and 1,000). Interestingly, the most popularly faked 500 note seems to be falling out of favour though it still is by far the biggest. The higher denomination 1,000 note seems to be the new favourite. In the first ten months of the current year more 1,000 counterfeits have been seized or recovered against that for entire 2009. “..RBI should introduce easily recognisable and yet scoring high anticounterfeiting security features in the design of currency notes on the lines of advanced international practices,” the parliamentary committee had said. The government has also constituted a high-level committee with the Union home secretary as its head to prepare a strategy to combat circulation of fake currency notes in the country. Parallel bodies have also been set up in the states. A directorate of currency has also been created in the finance ministry to coordinate and oversee acquisition and research and development of security features for currency notes. This followed recommendations of an expert panel chaired by Shilabhadra Banerjee, a former secretary to the government.
