Officials want security features changed every 3-4 years

That the new ₹2,000 and ₹500 notes have the same security features as the old ₹500 and ₹1,000 ones has the security agencies worried.

At a high-level meeting last week to discuss the presence of fake currency notes, officials at North Block were informed that the “covert security features” had not been changed since 2005.

The Hindu had reported on November 11, 2016, that the security features were changed last in 2005 when notes of all denominations with new security features were introduced.

Water marks, security thread, fibre and latent image comprise the security features and these require several representations, evaluation and a Cabinet nod.

An official had said then that since the decision to introduce the new notes was taken only around May 2016, there was no time to alter the security features as the entire exercise takes between five and six years.

Officials have suggested now that to check counterfeiting, the security features of higher denomination notes, such as ₹2,000 and ₹500, should be changed every 3-4 years in accordance with global standards.

In the four months since the government announced its decision to scrap the old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes on November 8, 2016, fake ₹2,000 notes with a face value of over ₹66 lakh have been detected by the Reserve Bank of India and the State police forces across the country.

Investigations under way

The government informed the Lok Sabha that investigations were on to determine whether the security features of the new notes had been compromised.

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the old notes were being scrapped and new ₹2,000 ones were being introduced as part of the government’s efforts to weed out black money and fake currency, which would eventually eradicate corruption and terror funding.

As per the Home Ministry’s reply in the Lok Sabha, from November 9, 2016, to March 7 this year, 3,346 pieces of fake ₹2,000 notes had been recovered.

The issue was discussed threadbare at a high-level meeting on Thursday, which was attended by senior officials of the Ministries of Finance and Home, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.

Home Ministry officials said most developed countries change the security features of their currency notes every 3-4 years.

Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for India to follow this policy.

The change in design of Indian currency notes of higher denominations was overdue.

“The newly introduced notes have no additional security features and were similar to those in the old ₹1,000 and ₹500 notes. Though the fake notes recovered so far have all been photocopies and of poor quality, it is not impossible for the enemy country to replicate them,” a senior official who was present in the meeting said.

The NIA had sent three fake notes for forensic analysis and the report said they were of low quality and were mostly scanned and colour copies of the original notes.

The report also said the notes were being printed in Bangladesh. According to the NIA, they were printed on the “security document of Bangladesh’s currency paper, which said Praja Tantri Bangladesh.”