The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has finalised the guidelines on Note Authentication and Fitness Sorting Parameters after taking into account the comments received from various stakeholders including banks, equipment manufacturers and members of public.
The guidelines may be implemented with immediate effect said RBI on Tuesday.
On soiling of notes the central bank has said soiling refers to the general distribution of dirt across the entire note or in some patterns. It is a measure of the loss of reflectivity from the unprinted areas due to dirt, ageing (yellowing), wear and extraneous markings and includes decolouration due to ageing, excessive folding wear and other wearing. Soiling increases the optical density and decreases the reflectance of the notes. Notes exceeding the soiling levels will be sorted as unfit.
Both the obverse and the reverse of the note shall be checked for soiling.These parameters are applicable to machines operated by banks, either directly by their staff or indirectly by their agents. On authenticity check, the central bank said the authorised machines shall perform authenticity check with reference to the features of genuine notes as disclosed by the RBI from time to time.
?Any note which is not found to be having all the features of a genuine note shall be classified by the machine as suspect,?? it said.
On mutilated note, the RBI said note, of which a portion is missing or which is composed of more than two pieces can treated as mutilated one .
An imperfect note is a note, which is wholly or partially, obliterated, shrunk, washed, altered or indecipherable but does not include a mutilated note.
