(Written by N.R.
Jayaraman )
Some interesting information
on Bank Notes:-
The bank notes issued by the Reserve Bank of India are in packets of 100s. The earlier practice of stapling the 100 note packs - carried out since introduction of the Bank Notes - have been discarded two decades ago as they cannot be used for dispensing the notes by ATM. Also the life of the stapled notes were far less than the non stapled notes. Similarly one more deviation in the usual practice was introduced by RBI by introducing Star Series Notes.
The bank notes issued by the Reserve Bank of India are in packets of 100s. The earlier practice of stapling the 100 note packs - carried out since introduction of the Bank Notes - have been discarded two decades ago as they cannot be used for dispensing the notes by ATM. Also the life of the stapled notes were far less than the non stapled notes. Similarly one more deviation in the usual practice was introduced by RBI by introducing Star Series Notes.
The
Bank Note production process is complicated and involves several procedures and
steps. One of the standard practices followed universally is to issue the
bank notes in bundles of 100 notes, each 100 notes placed in sequential serial
order beginning from one particular no. During the production process
especially during numbering process, as is normal in any other printing
process, some sheets get printed with some unforeseen, unavoidable printing
errors called 'numbering defects' thus disturbing the continuity and
therefore they have to be replaced.
The
Process, Paper and Inks used for Bank Note Printing being costly, the entire
defective sheet containing defective/ wrong numbers in one or two notes in
whole sheet cannot be expected to be destroyed totally. Moreover in
order to simply replace few defectively numbered notes the entire process
cannot be redone to get correct serial numbered note because the process
is time consuming and also involve additional cost. This is not the case
in India alone but is universally faced phenomenon.
Therefore
in order to reduce the cost a new practice was introduced to
issue specially numbered notes called 'Star Series' which will not have
sequentially numbered serials in a bundle of 100 notes. Such Star
Series notes were inserted replacing the defective notes in the bundles
containing 100 nos of serialized notes. The Star Series note
bundles though will contain 100 notes per packet may not have sequential
serial beginning from a particular number and may contain one or two
Star Series numbered note s in between.
The
Star Series Notes will be printed with a special mark like a Star symbol
in suitable place in the numbering panel to identify that the 100 note
packet is Star Series numbered notes. Since no two serial numbers can
remain the same, the note is simply printed with a Star mark symbol
in the serial number panel, identifying it as a replacement for an error
notes.
For
example in a bundle of 100 notes, there may be few wrongly numbered
notes, say, from 97 BA 552701 to 97 BA 552710 one note may have been wrongly
numbered and need to be replaced. The replaced note will be something
like the one illustrated below:
The Bank Notes issued by RBI prior to 2006 were in sequential number. No bundle had discontinued serial number. In this process whenever the notes were seen to contain wrong numbers they were separately printed and inserted in the bundles of 100 notes replacing the defective numbered notes. This process was time consuming, involved several avoidable and repeated process cycle in addition to increase the cost of printing.
However
as the said process continued over the years, keeping pace with
international best practices, in India too the Reserve Bank too commenced issue
of 'star' series of bank notes from 2006 in various denominations like Rs 10,
Rs 20 and Rs 50. RBI adopted Star Series numbering system for replacement
of defectively printed banknotes.
The
Star series banknotes were exactly similar to the existing Mahatma
Gandhi Series banknotes, but with an additional character say a star symbol
like * in the number panel in the space between the prefix (Two Alphabets
printed followed by numerals) and the serial number. The 100 note packets
containing those bank notes will not have sequential serial numbers, but
contain 100 banknotes, as usual. To facilitate easy identification of the bundles
that carry star series notes, the paper bands that are fastened on 100 notes
bundle carried captions like ''contains non serially numbered notes'' .
Some of the other countries that introduced star series notes were the following:
Some of the other countries that introduced star series notes were the following:
- The United States and Australia used "*" in the serial number to mark a replacement banknote. .
- Argentina uses "R" in the serial number to mark replacement banknotes.
- The Bahamas use "Z" in the serial number to mark replacement banknotes.
- Hong Kong and Mongolia use "ZZ" in the serial number to mark replacement banknotes.
- Singapore uses "Z/1" in the serial number to mark replacement banknotes.
- Indonesia uses "X" in the serial number to mark replacement banknotes.
- Zambia uses "X3" in the serial number to mark replacement polymer banknotes.
- Thailand uses "5 OS" in the serial number to mark replacement polymer banknotes.