Mega currency mill in Mysore to print notes

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone for the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran in Mysore (150 km from Bengaluru).

14 Jun 2010 | By Rahul Kumar

According to Mukherjee, the mega currency paper mill was being set up so that India could become self-reliant in printing currency notes and to check the growing circulation of fake ones.

The RBI also has plans to introduce polymer notes in the four metros and a fifth city too, on a pilot basis, and subsequently extend it to other cities. The RBI intended a total of 17 billion notes for the fiscal year 2009-2010, requiring 18,000 metric ton of banknote paper, mostly imported. "The requirement of notes and demand for currency paper is projected to go up". The 12,000-metric tonne Mysore plant will be built on the extended 400-acre area over the next three years.

Among the four high-security presses, two are government-owned presses  at Nashik in Maharashtra and Dewas in Madhya Pradesh. The other two, subsidiaries of the RBI, are at Mysore and Salboni in West Bengal.