After yellow Rs 200 notes, get ready for new chocolate brown Rs 10 notes

Still haven't gotten used to the new Rs 200 notes in bright yellow (or is it orange)? Soon, you will be paying your balance using chocolate coloured Rs 10 notes. According to reports, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is set to issue new Rs 10 notes that will be chocolate brown in colour. 

The new Rs 10 note will be issued by the central bank under the Mahatma Gandhi series and it will sport the picture of the Konark Sun Temple, which is situated in Odisha, Moneycontrol reported on Thursday. Further, citing people familiar with the matter, the financial daily reported that around one billion pieces of the new note have already been printed by the RBI. 

The last time the design of the old Rs 10 note was changed was in 2005, the report added. The new design, the financial daily said, was approved by the government just last week. 

But why are we set for a newly-designed Rs 10 note? According to the financial daily, the move to re-design lower denomination notes is part of the government's plan to get rid of counterfeit currency in the country. 

As reported in December last year, according to information provided by the Minister of State for Finance, P Radhakrishnan, as many as 169.6 million pieces of Rs 500 denomination note were printed till December 8. The minister also informed that the RBI printed 36.5 million pieces of Rs 2,000 notes. Similarly, 17.8 million pieces of Rs 200 notes had been printed by that time. (Read more)
 

In August last year, the RBI launched the new Rs 200 notes for the first time, saying it would make it easier for the common man to transact in lower denomination "missing link" currency and bring greater efficiency into the system.

The bright yellow coloured Rs 200 notes hit the market just a day after the finance minister gave the go-ahead to the RBI to issue the new currency bill.

As on November 9, 2017, one year after the government annulled high-denomination currency notes and subsequently replaced them with new notes, the total currency in circulation remained nine per cent less in value terms, reported IndiaSpend.  

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a surprise withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes – which constituted 86 per cent of cash in circulation at the time – a move he said would help weed out corruption, curb money laundering, and remove black money and counterfeit notes from the system.