RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said plastic currency notes will be launched in the country in 2015 after field trials. He said tender bids have come for one billion notes and in five cities, pilot testing would be done, including Shimla, before the formal launch. The government in February had informed Parliament that one billion plastic notes of Rs 10 denomination will be introduced in a field trial in five cities selected for their geographical and climatic diversity. The other four selected cities are Kochi, Mysore, Jaipur, and Bhubaneswar. The field trial is expected to be launched in the latter half of 2014. Plastic notes have an average life span of about five years and are difficult to imitate. Also, currency notes made of plastic are cleaner than paper notes. Plastic notes were first introduced in Australia to safeguard against counterfeiting of currency. Several countries in the West have introduced plastic notes for their advantage over normal notes.
