Budget 2019-20: New series of visually-impaired friendly coins to be available for public soon

A new series of visually-impaired friendly circulation coins will be made available for public use soon, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.

Speaking in Lok Sabha while presenting Union Budget 2019-20, Sitharaman said, "A new series of coins of Re 1, Rs 2, Rs 5, Rs 10, and Rs 20, easily identifiable to the visually impaired, were released by the Prime Minister on March 7, 2019. These coins will be made available for public use shortly."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a new series of visually-impaired friendly circulation coins on March 7.

The coins were released at a function at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, where visually impaired children were specially invited. The Prime Minister expressed happiness in hosting them and thanked them for giving him an opportunity to interact with them.

Addressing specially impaired children here, the Prime Minister had said, "Mahatma Gandhi used to say that every decision should be taken keeping in mind the last person of the society. Our government has considered this as our mantra."

"We have taken many decisions to understand the problems of divyangs, their lives and help them to increase their confidence. There are more than 100 websites of Indian government which can be easily accessible by divyangas. A sensitivity has emerged in the government that keeps these things in mind before taking any new decision," he said.

The Prime Minister thanked the National Institute of Design for the design, Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited and the Ministry of Finance for the introduction of new coins.

During the interaction with the Prime Minister, the children thanked the Prime Minister for introducing the new series of coins. They added that these coins will greatly ease their daily routine.

The coins are characterized by increased size and weight from lower to higher denominations. The newly included coin of Rs.20, will be a 12 sided coin with no serrations. The rest of the denominations would be of round shape.