Indian rupee sign

The Indian rupee sign (₹) is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its selection through an open competition among Indian residents. Before its adoption, the most commonly used symbols for the rupee were Rs, Re or, in texts in Indian languages, an appropriate abbreviation in the language used. The design is based on the Devanagari letter "र" (ra) with a double horizontal line at the top and the Latin capital letter "R" without its vertical bar. On 5 March 2009, the Indian government announced a contest to create a sign for the Indian rupee. During the 2010 Union Budget, then Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the proposed sign should reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture. From around 3,331 responses received, five symbols were shortlisted. These were the entries from Nondita Correa-Mehrotra, Hitesh Padmashali, Shibin KK, Shahrukh J. Irani, and D. Udaya Kumar: one of them was due to be selected at the Union Council of Ministers of India meeting held on 24 June 2010. However, the decision was deferred at the request of the Finance Minister, and the final decision was made when they met again on 15 July 2010, when they chose the symbol created by Udaya Kumar, Associate Professor IIT Guwahati. The new sign is a combination of the Devanagari letter "र" ("ra") and the Latin capital letter "R" without its vertical bar. The parallel lines at the top (with white space between them) makes an allusion to the tricolour Indian flag and also depict an equality sign that symbolizes the nation's desire to reduce economic disparity. The final selected symbol was designed by D. Udaya Kumar, a Bachelor of Architecture and (at the time) a visual design student at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay. The thoughts and philosophy behind the design are explained in this presentation. Ministry of Finance and Department of Economic Affairs of the Government of India had finally approved the sign.