Limited edition coins should be made accessible to public

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MADHU AGRAWAL

23 February, 2011

The government should ensure that the face value of the silver-alloy coins must be at least double the value of the metal-cost of coins, and these should be available in plenty for general public at face-value through all bank-counters.

THIS REFERS to the government coming out with only 200 coins of Rs 150 limited-edition silver-alloy coins being issued before the budget presentation on February 28 to mark the completion of 150 years of Income Taxation (1860-2010) in the country.

Surprisingly, the face-value of the coin is far less than metal-cost of the coin, and these coins are never to be issued on face-value for the general public. It is not understood how and why the union government has forgotten that the issue of new commemorative coins to mark an occasion must also be shared with common people.

In 1969, the first-ever post-independence silver-alloy coin of rupees 10 was issued on Mahatma Gandhi's birth-centenary but it was made available in large quantity on the face-value of the coin. But later, the system was changed, and higher-denomination silver-alloy coins were made available only as part of exorbitantly high-priced coin-sets costing several thousand rupees that too only through a cumbersome-procedure.

The union government should ensure that the face-value of the silver-alloy coins must be at least double the value of the metal-cost of coins, and these should be available in plenty for the general public at face-value through all bank-counters (private and public) and philately-counters right from date of formal release like it was done for Gandhi-centenary coins in the year 1969.