Rs 5 and Rs 2 coins with the new rupee symbol

Some of you may have already noticed it, but this was a first for me. Coins with the new rupee symbol are already in circulation.

Last night as I was about to hand over some change to a dhabawallah noticed that the two rupee coin looked a little different and was also smaller than the existing ones. Took a closer look and noticed the distinct symbol for the rupee standing proudly over the numeral two.

On reaching home took out all other coins from my wallet and found that there were more, including a specimen of the golden Rs 5 coin with the new rupee symbol.

Cutting the Chai has a special connection with the rupee symbol. It was the first to build and circulate a font (albeit amateurish and non-standard) for the new rupee symbol. The rupee symbol was officially included in the Unicode Standard (ver 6.0.0) in October 2010.

The other day at Nehru Place I was pleased to find out that people were asking for PC keyboards with a dedicated key for the symbol. But there are only a few in supply.

In case you want to know the logic D Udaya Kumar had in his mind while designing the new rupee symbol, head here.