Replacing currency worth ₹33 lakh crores to make it visually impaired friendly an enormous task: RBI to Bombay High Court

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) informed the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that replacing crores of currency notes with new notes to make them friendly for the visually challenged will be an enormous task that may not be feasible..Appearing for RBI, Senior Advocate Venkatesh Dhond submitted to the Court a report of the committee which contained suggestions regarding change of currency.Dhond submitted that bringing changes to the currency was a problematic part. He informed that under Section 25 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, whatever measures are required to be taken were required to be taken after approval from the Central government. “When committees suggest that you must have a phased, time-bound method by which you will remove confusing currency and replacing the committee has not even considered the enormity of this task. The total currency in circulation is 33,48,228 crores worth of currency and 13,621.37 crores of notes in numbers,” Dhond submitted. .The report stated that notes of all denominations issued after demonetisation were almost identical in size, making it impossible to distinguish them. The committee gave the following suggestions: Increase in size of notes proportionally so that size of the note is enough for recognition of currency. Embossing and bleed marks are not effective solutions to recognise currency as these do not sustain for long. Identification features of the note may be strengthened. A phased timeline should be provided so that inaccessible currency can be taken out from the system and be replaced by accessible currency. Use of long sustainable materials, like plastic currency be explored, if they support tactile markings for longer periods. Money apps may be explored for improving accessibility for persons with disabilities. .Dhond submitted that the recommendations of the report with respect to change of currency were required to be considered for their feasibility. “The process may not be as user-friendly as some may suggest. All these recommendations have been considered by blind persons associations in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. It is not that you just change the exercise. You have to reprint crores and crores of rupees; to print them, to put them in circulation. This has to be done after evaluation”, Dhond concluded. .A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Arif Doctor granted time to RBI to consider the report and posted the matter for hearing on July 19. .The Bench was hearing a public interest litigation filed in 2019 by the National Association for the Blind (NAB) which contended that the new currency notes issued by RBI are unidentifiable for visually impaired persons owing to changes in their physical features.In July 2022, RBI informed the High Court about the several tactile features in currency notes to help visually impaired persons to easily identify the denomination.Dhond submitted that in a similar petition before the Delhi High Court, RBI had constituted an expert committee which was going to be submitting a report. NAB counsel Dr Uday Warunjikar requested the Bombay High Court to call for the report in the present petition as well. The report was accordingly presented before the Bench on June 21.