The monetary value of one rupee coins have gone down substantially over the past two decades and can hardly be used to purchase anything. Yet, the cost of manufacturing a single one rupee coin is more than its own value, shows an RTI filed by India Today.

Responding to the RTI request, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revealed that the average cost of manufacturing a one rupee coin is 11 paise more than its own undersigned value.

The Indian Government Mint (Mumbai) has been engaged in minting Rs 10, Rs 5, Rs 2 and Re 1 denomination coins. The RTI also revealed that minting of coins has dropped significantly in 2018 compared to the past four years.

Over the past five years, the highest number of coins was minted in the year 2016-17 (2201 million coins), followed by the 2015-16 (2151 million coins). Compared to last year, the number of one rupee coins manufactured this year has also declined substantially from 903 million to 630 million.

However, it refused to reveal the cost of coin minting. It said, this information is denied under Section 8 (1) (d) of the RTI Act, 2005 as this is a trade secret.

While the Mumbai branch of Indian Government Mint declined, the government mint facility in Hyderabad shared details of the cost involved in manufacturing the coins. The cost of manufacturing Rs 2 coins comes at around Rs 1.28 per unit; Rs 5 coins at Rs 3.69 per unit; Rs 10 per unit at Rs 5.54.

The RBI also forwarded India’s Today’s questions to another Government Mint based in Hyderabad. This too revealed that presently they are minting four kinds of coins i.e. of Rs 10, Rs 5, Rs 2 and Re 1 denominations.

The Hyderabad Mint also provided numbers of these coins produced by it in the last four years. But unlike Mumbai Mint, Hyderabad mint had no problem in disclosing the production cost of these coins.

According to it the average cost of the production of Re 1 currency coin is Rs 1.11. So, yes, production cost of Re 1 coin is higher than its market value.