This Article First Appeared In The Print On October 17, 2023
In all likelihood, most millennials will see stamps and coins only in philatelic and numismatic museums. What the internet and courier services have done to stamps, postcards, inland letters, and aerogrammes, digital payment systems like Google Pay, Phone Pe, and UPI have done for coins of various denominations, including the humble Paisa.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has explicitly stated that the copper-nickel series of Re 1 and 50 paise coins will no longer be reissued by any bank. While these coins will retain their ‘face value,’ the fifty paise coin will only be legal tender for transactions not exceeding ten rupees, and the one-rupee coin will have an upper transaction limit of a thousand rupees.