The government on Thursday adopted a new symbol for the rupee that shall be used henceforth to represent the Indian currency in all written and electronic communication worldwide.
The symbol combines the Roman letter ‘R’ and its equivalent in Devnagari—a script which is employed in Hindi and in some other North Indian languages that were derived from Sanskrit.
The symbol, which replaces the oft-used shortened form of rupee such as ‘Rs’ or ‘INR’ (Indian Rupees), will take about two years to be fully implemented considering the time needed to update various software and computer keyboards.
The rupee has thus joined the club of currencies such as UK’s pound sterling, US’ dollar and the Japanese Yen that are identified by a symbol.
With this, the Indian rupee will also be seen as a distinct entity from its namesakes in the neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where either rupee or rupaiah are in vogue.
For the government, having a symbol for the domestic currency has been a matter of prestige for the fastest growing free market democracy in the world. The symbol, selected by the finance ministry from over 3,000 entries and approved by the Cabinet, is designed by D Udaya Kumar, a post-graduate from IIT, who has been newly appointed as an assistant professor in the design department of IIT-Guwahati.
