Nobody wants the ten-rupee coin

The ten-rupee coin is a story of the lingering effects of a rumour which has lasted to a point, where the people have forgotten about the rumour itself.

Sometime earlier this year, aboard a Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) bus in Hyderabad, I tried to use the ten-rupee coin to pay for my ticket. The bus conductor took it, had a look and handed it back to me, without uttering a word.

For quite some time now, the ten-rupee coin has been boycotted by the people of Hyderabad. There’s not one rumour at the centre of it but the effect of what had started at some point in time has lingered on. Nobody quite knows why there is a reluctance to accept the coin.

In his 11 years of service, Raju Nayak, a TSRTC bus conductor, has not once refused the ten-rupee coin. “Why should I? It is issued by the Government only.” City bus conductors deposit their daily earnings in their respective bus depots. This is why most people try to use their ten-rupee coins on buses. Then what may have been the reason for the gentleman before Mr Nayak to reject my request? “Some of them are psychos,” Nayak puts it simply. He has never faced any issue depositing the coins back at the depot.

Mohammed Akram, President of the Auto drivers’ union at the Lingampally bus stand tells me that they are currently not accepting ten-rupee coins. Before he could answer why, one of the auto drivers around him sprung up to life, “How can we take it when even the bus drivers are not taking it?” For the auto drivers, like traders and shopkeepers, the worry is about the transactional ease of the ten-rupee coin. Customers simply ask for the ten-rupee note instead.

The 'fake' coins

As of today, a total of four definitive designs of the ten-rupee coins have been minted, starting with the ‘Unity in Diversity’ series in 2005 followed by ‘Connectivity & Information Technology’ in 2007, the ‘Rupee symbol series’ in 2011 and the ‘2019 new series’ in 2019. (see pic) Apart from these four definitive designs, the RBI has issued numerous commemorative coins from time to time.

Few years ago, a rumour went around claiming that coins without the ‘rupee’ symbol were fake. However, the rupee symbol was only introduced in the year 2010 and therefore, the two versions minted before, did not have the rupee symbol on them. Apart from the rupee symbol, the third design minted in 2011 featured 10 stripes on the obverse side. This was noticeably different from its predecessor bearing 15 stripes. Thus, another rumour snowballed. Interestingly though, it was around the time of demonetisation, five years after the 2011 design came out, when rumours gained momentum across the country. At the time when the country was grappling with demonetisation, ten-rupee coins found no takers in some parts of the country, with some fearing that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had declared the coins invalid. On November 21, 2016, RBI released a press statement dispelling the rumours.

“As coins remain in circulation for longer periods, it is quite possible that coins of different designs and even shapes are circulating at the same time… Both of them are legal tender and equally good for transactions, though they may look a little different,” the statement read.

The actual fake coins

But counterfeit coins did enter the system. In 2016, The Delhi Police busted a major racket involving the Luthra brothers who had set up multiple factories across North India to mint fake coins of Rs 5 and Rs 10 denominations. They would float the counterfeit coins through toll gates and local markets, often posing as RBI officials. Till 2017, the brothers had managed to float about 50 crores worth of coins in the market. After the brothers were arrested, Sweekar Luthra in December 2016 and his elder brother Upkar, in 2017, all the major subsequent cases of counterfeit ten-rupee coins in the country have been found to have some connection to the brothers.

A visit to Indian Government Mint

On Dr Dash’s directive, the workers take me around the factory. They guide me through the entire process of coin minting from obtaining metal sheets to blanking, pickling, coining and packing. “Could anyone outside, mint coins in a home scale set-up?” I ask. “They can, but it’s not a profitable business.” Dr Dash informs. According to an Economic Times article from 2017, the Luthra brothers that produced counterfeit coins incurred a making cost of Rs 4.5 to produce a ten-rupee coin.

While the struggle with the ten-rupee coin continues, RBI introduced the twenty-rupee coin in 2019. Moreover, a Plea has also been filed with the Delhi High Court seeking issuance of Rs 50 coins for the benefit of the visually impaired.

Outside the IGM campus, I try my luck with a ten-rupee coin. The autowallah gave it back to me, quite politely. “Yeh sirf bank me ya bus me chalta aajkal” (This works only in banks and buses.)