The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced that it will soon issue Rs 20 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series.

The base colour of the note is greenish-yellow and will carry the signature of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.

The new banknote has a motif of Ellora Caves on the reverse, depicting the country’s cultural heritage. The note has other designs, geometric patterns aligning with the overall colour scheme, both at the obverse (front) and reverse (back).

The dimension of the banknote will be 63 mm x 129 mm.

All the banknotes in the denomination of Rs 20 issued by the RBI in the earlier series will continue to be legal tender, the apex bank informed.

The salient features of the new Rs 20 banknote are as under:

Obverse (Front)

1. See-through register with denominational numeral 20

2. Denominational numeral 20 in Devanagari

3. Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the centre

4. Micro letters ‘RBI’, ‘Bharat’, ‘INDIA’ and ’20’

5. Windowed demetalised security thread with inscriptions ‘Bharat’ and RBI

6. Guarantee Clause, Governor’s signature with Promise Clause and RBI emblem towards right of Mahatma Gandhi portrait

7. Ashoka Pillar emblem on the right

8. Mahatma Gandhi portrait and electrotype (20) watermarks

9. Number panel with numerals growing from small to big on the top-left side and bottom-right side.

Reverse (Back)

10. Year of printing of the note on the left

11. Swachh Bharat logo with slogan

12. Language panel

13. Motif of Ellora Caves

14. Denominational numeral 20 in Devnagari.

The central bank has already issued new look currency notes in the denominations of Rs 10, Rs 50, Rs 100, and Rs 500, besides introducing Rs 200 and Rs 2,000 bank notes.

The new look notes are being introduced since November 2016 under Mahatma Gandhi (New) series. These are different in size and design compared to the notes issued previously.

The currency notes, except for banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, issued under old series continue to remain legal tender.

The Rs 20 notes accounted for 9.8 per cent of the total number of currency notes in circulation at the end of March 2018.