Be wary while dealing with currency notes: IGP

Workshop to create awareness on fake currency held

Access to latest technology is one of the reasons
for production of fake currency

On any given day,
RBI gets 40 fake currency notes:
Gopalakrishna Upadhya


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Davangere: H.N. Satyanarayana Rao, Inspector-General
of Police (Eastern range), has called upon the people
to act prudently while dealing with the currency notes
particularly of high denominations such as
Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 and defeat the efforts
of anti-social elements circulating fake currency
notes in the country.

Inaugurating a fake currency awareness camp
organised by the Police Department here on Friday,
Mr. Rao expressed concern that all measures taken
to thwart the attempts of anti-social elements from
circulating fake currency notes had failed.

The fake currency notes looked like original notes
because the anti-social elements had access to the
latest technology for producing fake notes.

According to him, if people are alert, then
they would be able to distinguish between the
fake and original currency notes.

Mr. Rao said that most businessmen were unknowingly
handling at least a couple of fake currency notes every day.
He stressed on the need for people to familiarise
themselves with the way original notes look so that
they can detect a fake note when they come across
one and thus defeat the designs of the people
producing and circulating fake currency notes to
destabilise the economy of the country.

Gopalakrishna Upadhya, Chief Manager of the
State Bank of Mysore, made a power-point
presentation on fake currency. He said the
Reserve Bank of India found at least 40 fake
currency notes every day and noted that fake
currency was being circulated in rural parts
as people of rural places were gullible and
were unable to differentiate between the
original and fake currency notes.

Mr. Upadhya said that fake currency was distributed
among labourers who carried out public works in
Uttar Pradesh. He alleged that fake currency
notes were being sent into our country by Pakistan
via Nepal and Uttar Pradesh. There are three to
four counterfeit notes in every million notes.
All the fake currency that was in circulation
was made of colour photostat of the original
note or the scanned one.

Mr. Upadhya said that earlier we used to differentiate
between the fake and original notes with the help of
the watermark embossed on the original currency.
But now even the fake currency would have that
watermark almost similar to the original one.

Earlier, the Superintendent of Police said no case
of printing of fake currency notes had been
reported in Davangere district. However, there
were a couple of complaints about distribution
of fake currency.

The district police were planning to organise such
meetings and screening films in rural places
alerting the people about the original currency
and fake currency.

Kumar S. Karning, Additional Superintendent of Police was present.

A large number of traders and bankers and those who were running different financial institutions attended the meeting.