Where did the ₹ symbol come from?
1Read
Before 2010, the Indian rupee had no symbol. People wrote ‘Rs’. Dollars had $, pounds had £, and the rupee had two letters.
In 2009 the government held an open competition. Thousands of designs came in. The winner, chosen in 2010, was by Udaya Kumar, a designer from Tamil Nadu who had studied at IIT Bombay.
His design joins two letters: the Devanagari ‘र’ (ra) and the Latin capital ‘R’ without its vertical stroke. The two horizontal lines across the top stand for the Indian flag and the equals sign — a hint at a fair, balanced economy.
Today the ₹ sits on keyboards, notes and shop signs. It is one of the youngest currency symbols in the world, and one of the few designed by public competition.
2Words to learn
3Check your understanding
4Explain it
Speaking challenge
Describe the ₹ symbol to someone who has never seen it, then explain its meaning.
Say it out loud. Nobody is listening — that’s the point. Mistakes are allowed.