Has Reserve Bank of India Released New Currency? No, Its Fake News
Most of the pictures are either morphed or represent commemorative currency released by the government.
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CLAIM
Images of various denominations of notes and coins are being circulated on social media with a claim that these are new currency released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as legal tender (ie, they can be used as money).
The denomination of currencies circulated varies from Rs 2, Rs 3 and Rs 500 notes, and Rs 100, Rs 125, Rs 1000 coins.
The Quint received a query about this.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
The images are misleading. We found out that these currencies are not legal tender. The legal tender currencies are only of Rs 2000, 200,100, 50, 20, 10 as per the official website of the RBI.
Further RBI in a press release dated 26 June 2019 had notified that coins of 50 paise, Rs 1, 2, 5 and 10 denominations of various sizes, themes and designs are in circulation presently.
The Reserve Bank has also appealed to the members of the public not to give credence to rumors and continue to accept these coins as legal tender in all their transactions without any hesitation, following rumours that these coins were no longer valid.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE COINS
On conducting a reverse image search we found out that most of these coins were released as commemorative coin. The commemorative coins are released to honor certain personality or to celebrate historically important day but are not legal tender.
A Rs 1000 coin was released as a commemorative coin in the year 2012 by the government to celebrate the thousand years of Brihadeeswara temple (dedicated to Shiva located at South bank of Kaveri river in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu), reported The Times of India.
A Rs 200 coin was released in 2016 by then culture minister Mahesh Sharma on the Martyrdom Day of 1857 mutiny hero Tatiya Tope.
A Rs 150 coin was released first in the year 2010 to celebrate 150-years of building India-Chanakya and again in 2011 by Pranab Mukherjee as finance minister to commemorate 150 years of Income Tax Collections and again thereafter couple of times.
A Rs 100 coin was released in the year 2018 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the memory of former Prime Minister Atal Vihari Vajpaee. The coin has earlier been released in the years 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015 on other important occasions.
Rs 125 coin was released in the year 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar and again by the the Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu in on 29 June, 2018 on the occasion of Statistics Day to mark the 125th birth anniversary of PC Mahalanobis.
The government on 13 November 2018 had announced that a Rs 75 coin will be released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the hoisting of the Tricolour for the first time by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at Port Blair.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NOTES?
On looking carefully at the Rs 1,000 note, we noticed some glaring errors. First on top the note reads, ‘Do hazar rupiya (Two thousand rupees)’ but the numerical on the note reads Rs 1000.
Similary, the second five rupee note reads, ‘pachas rupiya (fifty rupees)‘, but the numerical on the note reads Rs 5.
Though we couldn’t find glaring discrepancies or errors on Rs 5000,1000, 350 and 2 notes, according to the RBI's website, these notes are not in circulation. According to the RBI, only the following notes are in circulation:
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