Indigenous currency papers, use of plastic cards to reduce imports, says Finance Minister
Use of credit and debit cards instead of cash and manufacturing currency papers within the country, can help India reduce its imports of high-security papers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday. Speaking at a conference on “Indigenisation of Currency” held in New Delhi, the minister also advocated for the use of internet transactions through various payment gateways. Jaitley said that developed countries have already shifted towards using plastic cards and online payments and now it is time for India to follow suit. “The developed world has moved substantially to plastic currency and payment gateways. I think there is need for India and our determination is there to gradually take steps to move in that direction,” the minister was quoted as saying at the conference by a media report. The remarks came a week after the Finance Minister inaugurated a bank paper note manufacturing unit at Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh. The new bank note paper line of 6,000 metric tonne capacity is part of the indigenisation of the currency papers undertaken by the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL), a government-owned company, a Finance Ministry statement had said. SPMCIL has also set-up a joint venture company called Bank Note Paper Mill India Pvt Ltd in Mysore. The combined production from the new paper line at Hoshangabad and the joint venture company in Mysore will be about 18,000 MT, which will meet a major requirement of the high-security papers indigenously. “The combined savings of foreign exchange from these two projects will be about Rs1,500 crore in the coming years,” the statement added. The production of bank note paper from facilities at Hoshangabad and Mysore will also reduce the risk of diversion of these papers supplied by foreign suppliers to other destinations for making fake currency. On Tuesday, Jaitley said that the two facilities will also help in printing Indian currency notes using indigenously produced papers and inks. At present, estimates say that India needs more than 20,000 tonnes of currency papers every year and a bulk of these papers is imported.
June 03, 2015 | 01:05 pm IST.
to success.