Indian Rupee Symbol to be Decided Today

The Union Cabinet will today decide on the symbol for Indian Rupee, a privilege (unique identity) available only to major currencies like dollar, euro, pound, sterling and yen.

Indian Rupee Symbol

Indian Rupee Symbol

The proposal, said to be prompted by the growing influence of the Indian economy in the global arena, involves a shortlist of five symbols (finalists above) for the Indian rupee drawn up the finance ministry, reflecting the Indian ethos and culture (via)

A year back, Government announced contest to design the symbol (winning entry gets Rs 2,50,000) and the prime criteria for the selections were

  • The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard.
  • The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.
  • The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country.

Take a look at the five options above. Which one do you think should be the winner?

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60 Comments

    • Reema said:

      None of the five designs are the actual shortlisted ones!!

      so no point viting for any of these

      Reply
      • Leo said:

        And how do you know that these are not the short listed ones?? I mean every news paper is sowing these 5 symbols, but you claim the shortlisted ones are different? What is the source of your news?

        Reply
        • raju said:

          Pl see final five coment…( Indian rupee to get a symbol soon Rediff.com)
          “My design is not among the five published in the newspaper report. I don’t know what is going on”, Nondita Correa-Mehrotra, Architect, who submitted one of the best designs, said. Her symbol is elegant, easy to recognize and very adaptable to both print and handwriting.

          Other finalists agree with her that the symbols are not the correct representation. Designing the rupee symbol was the most challenging assignment for them.

          “I think my design is among the best three in the shortlisted list. With India’s [ Images ] fast-paced growth, it is important for us to have an identity for the Rupee. I am looking forward to hear the result”, says Shibin K K.

          I don’t know how the media can publish such images without any authenticity. My design is not among any of the designs published today, he adds.

          The five designs were short-listed from over 25,000 applications received from across the country.

          “All the designs had strong characteristics. There is a good chance of wining. But I am surprised that the newspapers reports with the short listed entries are not the ones that were selected as the final five”, says Hitesh Padmashali, whose design was also shortlisted.

          It was a big challenge to make a symbol that transcends languages, appeal to Indians and the world. None of the designs in the newspaper report are the shortlisted ones, says Shahrukh [ Images ] Irani, who is looking forward to hear the news from the finance minstry.

          Udaya Kumar, one of the finalists was surprised to see the designs, which were not the finalised ones in the newspaper and other websites today. He has been getting lot of calls enquring about these designs. “It was very disappointing to see those designs as the shortlisted entries. The media reports have created a lot of confusion,” he said.

          The Indian government had announced a competition in March last year inviting creative designs from Indian residents to represent the rupee in a simple form.

          Reply
          • saveindianrupeesymbol.org said:

            According to RTI Documents – She is the one who had in contact with Finance ministry prior to competition regarding Indian Rupee Symbol Design.

            And later on her design got shortlisted in top five finalist list too – Coincident or political connection ?

            Reply
            • r k said:

              UNDER RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT 2005. GIVEN BY FIN.MIN. GOV. OF INDIA.
              Submission of Entries:
              ……..The entry should be accompanied by a brief explanation of the Design and how it best symbolizes the Indian Rupee ……..

              Guidelines for preparing entries:
              2. A graphical construction of the symbol design in exact proportions in a bigger
              size, along with final design, Theme synopsis and concept is required to be
              submitted.
              3. The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as
              widely accepted across the country.
              Que. 7- The script of applicant which in Hindi language be translate in other language presents before jury.
              Ans. Only symbol of the applicant was presented to the Jury for selection.
              —————————————————————————————–
              Guidelines for preparing entries:
              4. The size of the final design should not be smaller than 232 square cm (36 sq
              inches). It is to be submitted along with minimum TEN different proportionallysmaller sizes up to 4 points font size of the text matter.
              Que.3 -How many meetings when , where & each date of meeting, time taken for the meeting & average time of applicant design taken reg. Total entries of evaluation ?
              Ans. Meetings of Jury were held on 29/30 September, 2009 in Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi and on 16th November, 2009 in Reserve Bank of India, New Delhi for evaluation of entries. The meetings on 29th and 30th September were from 10.00AM to 5.00PM and the meeting meeting on 16th November was from 2.00 PM to 5.00PM

              NOTE- TOTAL PARTICIPATE- 2644
              TOTAL- SYMBOL 3331
              TOTAL ENTREE RECIV FIN MIN 3200

              Reply
      • Peter said:

        I was listening to the news today here in Canada and none of the five images presented here match the description I was given.

        Reply
  2. Vishnu said:

    I go for 5.. Its easy to write if keyboard is not available.. i cant sit and draw curves since am an awful artist..

    plz stick with 5 considering d fact most of ppl are not good artists..

    :P

    as if this gonna bother cabinet ministry lol..

    do whatever u guys want..

    Vishnu

    Reply
  5. Rohit said:

    2 or 5 should be chosen. They alone resemble both Hindi Ra, and English R.

    Reply
  6. Kamal Tripathi said:

    I like 2 & 4. 2 for its curves, looks neat and a little stylish too and 4 for its simplicity, is easy to remember and draw too. These are symbols after all, need not be drawn to scale. Think of something like euro. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_sign

    No one ever draws it to scale in writing. Even keyboards put it as “simple crossed curve”. So rest easy on drawing.

    Is it just me or everyone feels that somehow all designs are more or less similar.

    Reply
    • Anil said:

      How top 5 Indian rupee symbol short listed ignoring the remaining 3326 participants. The act of group selectors (Reputed personalities) has come in to dark circle; whether they are unknown with Indian composite culture and myths or they are of MAKAULIN mind.

      Reply
  10. Bonda said:

    All are junk in my opinion. They all look like English R and people will obviously replace the symbol with R, in computers.

    It will add to more confusion. Once this is over, Finance Ministry has to explain what is “National Language Script” constitutionally and running a risk of invalidating the entire process.

    Reply
  13. NIlesh Ukey said:

    4 is good but it will loose its look if we try make it bold(as normal fonts)…. in that sense number 2 will be the best to implement and more robust for different styles.

    Reply
  14. Jay said:

    They all suck real bad.

    If one sees the dollar, pound or even a euro sign in compare to the above ones they look far more superior in looks.

    Reply
  15. rakshit said:

    The problem is this criteria:

    # The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard.
    # The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.
    # The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country

    It can lead to just one acceptable design:

    http://www.greaterthings.com/Humor/Images/ass2.jpg

    Reply
  16. Rohan said:

    RTI Activist exposed : Mismanagement and violation of guidelines in “Indian Rupee Symbol” design competition

    1. No records which could show how many total design entries FM received.
    2. Non-eligible candidate was shortlisted in top five finalists.
    3. One finalist was contact with FM and RBI prior to competition.
    4. Design concept or brief was not put in front of jury along with symbol design.
    5. Jury spends less than 20 seconds on each design entries to analyze it.
    6. One jury member was absent on the day of final presentation.
    7- Three jury member was absent two days meeting date 29 and 30 Sep 2009

    Hindustan Times Hindi- Lucknow 18 March

    http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2905/18sec.jpg

    Hindustan Times Hindi- Lucknow 19 March

    http://img233.yfrog.com/i/19marhindustan.jpg/

    Reply
  17. Michael Everson said:

    Ugh, none of these has any typographic beauty at all.

    It will probably fall to me to propose whatever gets chosen for inclusion in Unicode.

    Reply
  18. Arvind said:

    Hmmm, political indigestion prevails. That’s bad. I too really do not like any of the designs.

    -Arvind

    Reply
  21. Nitin said:

    Hi,

    I didnt like any of these symbol.
    why do u want it to suitble for standared keyboard, you can insist to put new symbol on keyboard as other countries did.
    If you are going to select, go for no. 5, other are not likeable to most of all.

    Thanks,
    Nitin,
    Norway

    Reply
  23. PRADEEP said:

    I go for Number 3 . It is easy to write even in ruuning handwriting . Others symbols are so clumbersome to write and even get distorted.

    Reply
  24. Rohit said:

    me too go for Symbol 3 . Truly ,it is easy to write and elegant. i tried writing all the symbol. Number 3 is the best

    Reply
    • Jay said:

      Now I understand why the symbol that you had designed got rejected!
      Thanks for sharing anyway!

      Reply
  27. Pradeep said:

    Excellent piece of design and innovation yet simple. I really liked the design by Utpal. we have been shown only these few design but some great designs were never brought in front of our eyes for selection.

    Reply
  30. JAY said:

    I think its must have easy symbol..
    so dat everybody see easy nd write easy nd draw easy….

    Reply

  31. Pingback: Indian Currency Rupee Symbol

  32. Sathish Chandran said:

    JaiHind………………..

    Vande Maadaram…………………….

    I Like number No.2 Symbol awesome Creative drawing

    Reply

  33. Pingback: If it was me, I'd say "I love the Rupee, and it was my idea!" - Sorting it all Out - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

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  36. rakesh said:

    All is not well.
    Indian rupee symbol . Pl care the matter…

    1st News
    VISFOT.com Hindi News
    http://www.visfot.com/index.php/news_never_die/3702.html

    2nd
    DNA news
    http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_flaws-in-selection-of-rupee-symbol_1411192

    New Delhi: Days after its selection by the finance ministry, the symbol of the rupee has got embroiled in a controversy. Two of the unsuccessful candidates have claimed that the selection process to choose the new rupee symbol is full of discrepancies and is flawed. The duo — Anil Khatri and R K Singh — have used RTI replies given by the finance ministry to assert their claim. Designs of both were short-listed, but they didn’t make it to the last five………………….

    ch..ch…ch.

    Reply
  37. Jay ho said:

    Rupee symbol maker has DMK background
    The man who designed the award winning insignia for the rupees actually hails from a family attached to the DMK, a party actually known for its pro-Tamil tilt or anti-Hindi agitation in the 60s and 70s.
    Mr D Udaya kumar, presently working as assistant professor in IIT-Guwahati, and who came up with the design is the son of Mr N Dharmalingam, a former DMK MLA, who is a native of Marur in Villupuram district in North Tamil Nadu.
    The family presently stays in Thondiarpet in North Chennai where Udaya Kumar grew up. Kumar had earlier passed out of Chennai’s Anna University with a top rank in architecture and has always been known for his bent on art.
    The insignia he designed is a combination of Devanagiri script and Roman letter “R” combining both Rupee and rupiya as pronounced in present Hindi………………………..

    http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=334878&catid=36&Itemid=66

    Reply
    • Bhai ho said:

      Moron, be mattered with the symbol not his background, caste, genetics or biases. Idiots like you spoil the country and its landscape.

      Reply
      • Ali said:

        Problem is not with his “his background, caste, genetics or biases” but political corruption.

        He was only allowed to submit 4 design…. investigate the whole truth before act like Moron

        Reply

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