As the tussle over language and Hindi imposition with the Centre, the Tamil Nadu government replaced the Devanagari rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in its logo for the budget 2025-26, which was presented on Friday.
The logo for the Tamil Nadu Budget 2025 released on Thursday carried ‘ru,’ the first letter of the Tamil word ‘Rubaai,’ which denotes the Indian currency in the vernacular language.
The traditional Rupee symbol ( ₹), which India uses today for its currency, has not been there since beginning. Rather, it was a new addition. Here is everything you need to know about the history of the Rupee symbol, its design and concept, and controversies.
Rupee abbreviation
The symbol of Rupee ( ₹) has been a recent addition in Indian history. Before its adoption, the most commonly used abbreviation of the currency were ₹and Re.
Adopting the ₹ symbol
The rupee symbol was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the prime minister of the country at the time.
Selection process
The Centre in 2009 announced a contest to create a sign for the Indian rupee. The contest had seen around 3,331 responses, out of which five candidates were shortlisted.
Winner was from Tamil Nadu
In the competition, the design by Tamil Nadu’s D. Udaya Kumar had won. The ₹ symbol that we use today traces back to his idea.
The design
The design combination of the Devanagari letter र and the English capital letter R without the vertical line, with a horizontal line in the middle alluding to the Indian national flag.
Spreading the word
Upon adopting the rupee symbol in July 2010, the Centre had said that it would adopt the sign within six months domestically, and around the world in two years. Banks started printing currency notes with the sign, while the 2010 Commonwealth Games also promoted it.
Controversies
The selection process of the rupee symbol was challenged in the court in 2010, with a plea that described it as full of flaws. The petition was initially dismissed by the Delhi High Court, but in 2013 it directed the government to formulate or prepare guidelines to ensure transparency. The Finance Ministry later complied to the decision and released guidelines. In 2025, the rupee symbol found itself in a controversy again when the Tamil Nadu government let go of it in its Budget logo.
Designer reacts to TN govt’s ₹ snub
IIT Guwahati professor Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam, the designer of the official Indian rupee symbol, expressed surprise over the debate surrounding the change.
“I don’t have complete information behind the reasons of this change; probably, the state government has their own ways, views, and reasons to make the changes. I designed this 15 years ago when the Central government floated a competition and I won it, after which they implemented it and it’s being widely used. I am really happy about being the designer of this symbol, but I never expected such a debate to ever occur,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.
