Hyderabad: A city resident, Mr Satya Nagesh, has said that he would be applying for the record for the highest number of currency notes printed with one person’s visage — that of Mahatma Gandhi.
To get material to back his claim for a Guinness record, Mr Nagesh filed an application under the Right to Information Act with the Reserve Bank of India asking for information regarding how many notes with Mahatma Gandhi’s visage were in circulation. The response was that the Mahatma’s face was printed on 2,21,962.55 million notes that are in circulation.
“I wanted to submit this to the Guinness Book of World Records, as it would be a proud moment for the country. It took me some time to find out if a record of this sort exists. As it turns out, 35 countries have notes with pictures of the (British) Queen printed on it,” Mr Nagesh told Deccan Chronicle.
He added that this piqued his curiosity to check whether the Mahatma had the highest number of currency notes with his picture.
The RTI application also asked the Reserve Bank about the origin the idea to have only the Mahatma’s portrait on currency notes. To this, the RBI said it was confidential information.
“We are not at liberty to give out such information, in the national interest. We can only give out the number of notes that have been printed,” he said.
As it turns out, the portrait of Gandhi became a regular feature on currency notes in 1987. This was when the then `500 currency notes began to carry a picture of the father of the nation. Some of the earlier series did not feature the father of the nation.
Numismatists of the city recall that Gandhi's portrait has become a regular feature on currency notes of different denominations.
