Oops! You can't 'launder' India's new Rs 500 note
India’s bold move to invalidate much of its cash and issue new bills to fill the void within two weeks may have come at a cost.
The newly issued Rs 500 bills are losing color when they are washed, according to reports. Some people are advising to not leave any bills in their pockets before handing them out to laundry as a brief encounter with water and detergent is suffice to turn them look like counterfeits.
It's worth pointing out that other currency notes in India are able to withstand several washes. It is not known right now how these notes will cope up with rains.
These complaints follow a recent report which claimed that some newly issued Rs 2,000 notes didn’t have Mahatma Gandhi’s image printed on them. At the time, a State Bank of India officer had acknowledged the error, saying "It is not fake currency, it is a misprint."
In November, RBI, the governing body which regulates the banking system and prints new notes, had admitted that there have been misprints on many notes. Officials at the time had noted that RBI has been under pressure to print new notes in rush.
On Nov. 8., India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the country by surprise when he announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 tender bills would be illegal to use overnight. In the aftermath, it appears not only common people, but even the government is struggling to cope up.
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