Coins of the Indian rupee
[1] New coins have been produced annually since then and they make up a valuable aspect of the Indian currency system.
All of these are produced by four mints located across India,[2] in Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Noida.
With effect from 30 September 1968, all anna coins and British Indian (pre-decimalisation) rupee coins minted in quaternary alloy (1/2 silver composition) were officially demonetised, though pre-decimalisation rupee coins minted in pure nickel, including British Indian issues from June 1946 onwards, continued to be legal tender.
They depict various special events or people, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, B. R. Ambedkar, Rajiv Gandhi, Dnyaneshwar, the 1982 Asian Games, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sri Aurobindo, Chittaranjan Das, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, Rabindranath Tagore, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Bal Gangadhar Tilak etc.
The new Dominion (or Union) of India retained the previous imperial currency with the portrait of King George VI.
The British King's portrait was replaced by the Lion Capital of the Ashoka Pillar.
The Act came into force with effect from 1 April 1957, after which anna and pice denominations were demonetised.
[12] The antiquated spelling of "pice" was modified to "paisa" in the singular and "paise" in the plural.
The legend in Devanagari script explaining the value of coin in terms of fraction of a rupee continued till it was finally dropped from the new design minted 1964 onwards.
Small-denomination coins which were formerly made of bronze, nickel-brass, cupro-nickel and aluminium-bronze were gradually minted in aluminium.
The very considerable costs of managing note issues of ₹1, ₹2, and ₹5 led to the gradual coinage of these denominations.
These coins continued to be minted till 2004, when the Unity in diversity series was launched.
These coins are stainless steel and feature various Hasta Mudras (hand gestures in Indian Classical dance).
The design of the coins were prepared by the National Institute of Design while Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited and the Ministry of Finance played the key role in the introduction of new coins in the country.
Various new features have been incorporated in the new series of circulation coins to make them more easy for the visually impaired people to use.
The coins are characterized by increasing size and weight from lower to higher denominations from ₹1 to ₹20.
₹0.25, ₹0.50 1998 1999 2000 2001 2000 The first Indian commemorative coin was issued in 1964 in remembrance of Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary.
These coins based on birth or death centenary of famous personalities or on recently dead, commemoration of special government programs or sport events, anniversaries of historical incidents, government organisation etc.
According to RBI, this design represents "four heads sharing a common body" under a new "unity in diversity" theme.
