KATHMANDU, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's central bank has introduced 1000-rupee banknotes with a feature enabling the visually impaired people to identify the note easily, a senior official of the central bank, Nepal Rastra Bank said.
China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation printed and delivered the new 1000-rupee notes, according to the central bank. "We have maintained international standards and practice in the new note to ensure that the visually impaired people identify the note easily," Chinta Mani Siwakoti, deputy governor at Nepal Rastra Bank told Xinhua on Friday evening.
The note has 'M' written on the lower right side of the note. In roman, the 'M' means 1,000 and it was used to denote the 1000-rupee notes, according to the Nepali central bank. The surface where 'M' is written is raised compared to the surface on other parts of the note so that visually impaired people can identify denomination of the note by touching on that part, according to the Nepali central bank.
Siwakoti said that the central bank was preparing to test these notes among the visually impaired people on whether they could identify the denomination of notes.
Old notes denominated 1,000 rupees, 500 rupees and 100 rupees also have some features to ease the visually impaired people to identify the notes. For example, 1000-rupee notes have three large points, 500-rupee notes have two points and 100-rupee notes have one point. "But, most of the visually impaired people struggled to identify these notes and the change was made," said Siwakoti.
The Nepali central bank had awarded the contract to the Chinese company for printing and delivering over 300 million pieces of 1000-rupee banknotes. The Chinese company has won the majority of the contracts to print the Nepali notes in the last three years. The Nepali central bank takes around three years to bring new notes of all denominations.
The 1000-rupee notes are the largest value notes in the Himalayan country. Enditem
