The Tale of Rupee's Symbol
It all began on 5 March 2009 when the Indian government announced a contest to create a sign for the Indian rupee. Indian government had announced a nationwide contest for new rupee symbol. More than 3000 entries were received in this national competition. It was truly a tough challenge to select one design because of quality of several other designs. It was decided that such a symbol would be selected which not only conveys the message as mere Indian Rupees but it should also reflect the country’s unity and diversities. To do this Government had formed a jury headed by the RBI Deputy Governor. Five signs created by Nondita Correa-Mehrotra from Mumbai, Hitesh Padmashali from JWT Mumbai,, Shibin KK from Kerala, Shahrukh J Irani from Mumbai , and D Udaya Kumar Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai had been short listed from around 3331 responses received and one of them was to be finalized at the Union Cabinet meeting held on 24 June 2010. The decision was deferred by a request of the Finance Minister, and it was decided when they met again on 15 July 2010, and selected the symbol created by Mr. Udaya Kumar.
The new symbol is a wonderful blend of the Devanigiri ‘Ra' "र" and roman ‘R'. It has two parallel lines crossing this ‘Ra’ or ‘R’ which actually denotes that the symbol “is equal to” one Indian rupee. A closer look at the symbol also indicates robustness of the Indian economy. The design is said to be inspired from the tricolour, with two lines at the top and white space in between.
What new rupee symbol does is to lend a distinctive character and identity to the Indian currency. In some ways, it reflects the strength of the growing Indian economy. There are few other countries whose currencies are also designated as Rupee or Rupiah, like Indonesia, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. New rupee symbol will help Indian currency in distinguishing itself from other currencies. Now, Indian currency will be internationally recognized just the way Yen, Dollar and Pound is recognized. The Indian government will try to adopt the sign within six months in the country and globally within 18 to 24 months.
During the Union Budget 2010, our Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee mentioned that the proposed sign would reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture and finally the design was presented to the public by the government of India on 15 July 2010.
Today the Indian Rupee sign is currently been used in all leading newspapers and can be seen in any price tag for products. Also various articles in papers where currency is to be used, this new sign is adopted instead of previous sign (Rs). We are also able to see that most of companies have also used the new rupee symbol in preparing their quarterly reports.
During the Union Budget 2010, our Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee mentioned that the proposed sign would reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture and finally the design was presented to the public by the government of India on 15 July 2010.
Today the Indian Rupee sign is currently been used in all leading newspapers and can be seen in any price tag for products. Also various articles in papers where currency is to be used, this new sign is adopted instead of previous sign (Rs). We are also able to see that most of companies have also used the new rupee symbol in preparing their quarterly reports.
Various new solutions for the usage of the Rupee Symbol have been also developed like Web Rupee provides an API which facilitates the usage of the Rupee symbol over the web. Desktop users can download rupee font provided by Foradian Technologies. The Ubuntu operating system is the first computer program to support the Rupee symbol out of the box. It is hoped that by the end of next year, the new symbol would have been adopted globally.
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