How much does a rupee ten currency note cost? While Reserve Bank of India owned Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited sells it at 70 paise, the Central government owned Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited sells it at Rs 1.22.
An RTI response reveals that Rs 20 currency notes are sold by the two public sector undertakings at 95 paise per unit and Rs 1.216 per unit, respectively.
The revelation is significant as it shows that the two PSUs have different printing costs and sale price (to government) for the currency notes.
However, the response to the RTI query made by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal showed that there has been a cost reduction in the printing of one rupee notes by SPMCIL—from Rs 1.14 per unit to Rs 78.5 per unit.
The response given by BRBNMPL showed that the sale price of thousand pieces of 100 rupee note is Rs 1,430, that of 500 rupee note is Rs 3,090 and 1,000 rupee note is Rs 3,540.
Agrawal demanded that the Central government should study how the cost of printing currency notes of various denomination by the units of SPMCIL is much higher than that of BRBNMPL.
The RTI query had also sought to learn what steps were being taken by the company to reduce the cost of printing bank notes.
BRBNMPL did not share the information, citing exemption under Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. SPMCIL said the information was not available in its corporate office. It, however, said cost reduction in manufacturing of coins was being made by upgrading and overhauling of coining presses and packaging lines to their optimum capacity.
