Tech & Biz

New Symbol for Indian Rupee Unveiled (Photo)

by Amy Judd | July 15, 2010 at 10:49 am

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The Indian Rupee Has a New Symbol After a National Competition Was Held

The designer, D Udaya Kumar, is a teacher at the Indian Institute of Technology and the new symbol combines the letter R with its Hindi equivalent according to the BBC. It has now been approved by the government and will soon become the official symbol of the rupee. It will take about two years for it to be fully integrated in to the monetary system.

The competition started in March 2009 and the government wanted a symbol that would 'capture the ethos and culture of India'.

The new symbol will be the "identity of the Indian currency", information minister Ambika Soni says.

"It will distinguish the rupee from other currencies."

D Udaya Kumar will receive almost $5,500 in prize money.

The winning design is made up of half the letter R with a horizontal line on top and in between to make it also look like its equivalent in the Devanagari script, which used in a number of Indian languages including Hindi and Sanskrit.