November 12, 2006	Sunday	Shawwal 19, 1427

KARACHI, Nov 11: The State Bank’s plan of changing the designs of all banknotes has not been received well by the people owing to the ‘similarity’ between notes of different denominations.

A number of people complained that the Rs5,000 and Rs20 banknotes look alike and lead to confusion for the users as there is a possibility of using the same colour wrong note in lieu of the right one unintentionally. Cheats can also use these to dodge unsuspecting customers.

Though the size of the notes is different as Rs5,000 note is larger than Rs20 note, when folded, it is hard to differentiate between the two.

One of the user of the new notes said she handed over Rs5,000 instead of Rs20 to make a small payment. There is a strong possibility of deceptive use of these notes.

The State Bank has launched a media campaign for the acceptability of new notes which it said was an awareness campaign to save people from any kind of forgery. The central bank said the new banknotes can not be copied as latest high technology has been used to print these notes.But at the same time, uneducated Pakistanis, (number runs in millions) might be cheated if they fail to recognize the numbers indicating value of the rupee.

A number of people said that colour and designs of different denominations banknotes should be clearly different from each other. The SBP has already issued new banknotes of Rs10, Rs20, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs5,000.

The bank plans to complete its current design upgrading campaign of banknotes early next year when new design banknotes of remaining denominations of Rs50 and Rs1,000 are expected to be introduced.