The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will shortly introduce new Rs 10 currency notes under the Mahatma Gandhi series,the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced on Friday

The old Rs 10 banknotes will remain legal, according to media reports.

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The central bank has already printed around 1 billion pieces of the new Rs 10 banknotes, the new banknotes will have chocolate brown colour as the base and will also bear the picture of Odisha’s Konark Sun Temple on the reverse side, according to RBI.

“RBI will shortly issue Rs 10 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series, bearing signature of Governor Urjit R. Patel.

“All the banknotes in the denomination of Rs 10 issued by the Reserve Bank in the earlier series will continue to be legal tender,” it added.

Among salient features of the new note, the number panel on the note has the size of numerals growing from left to right

In August 2017, the RBI had introduced new Rs 50 and Rs 200 notes under the Mahatma Gandhi series. The move to reintroduce lower denomination notes in a new design was taken to discourage counterfeit notes and a less-cash economy.

On 8 November, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation economic policy, under which Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes were withdrawn from circulation. The move removed around 86 per cent of the currency in circulation or Rs 15.44 lakh crore, according to media reports.

The Rs 1,000 notes were replaced with new Rs 2,000 notes, while the Rs 500 notes were redesigned.

According to RBI’s annual report for the last financial year, the volume of banknotes increased by 11.1 per cent mainly owing to higher infusion of lower denomination currency after the government’s demonetisation measure.

According to media reports, RBI has printed 16.96 billion pieces of Rs 500 banknotes and 3.6 billion pieces of Rs 2,000 notes as on December 8, according to information given by the finance ministry in Lok Sabha. The total value of the notes amounts to Rs 15.79 trillion.

Currency in circulation was Rs 16.71 trillion as on December 22, according to RBI. This is about 94.4 percent of the Rs 17.7 trillion that was in circulation on 4 November 2016, media reports added.

(With agency inputs)