Lumbini – Birth place of Buddha – features in Rs 100 notes

The central bank has introduced new bank notes of Rs 100 denomination featuring Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.

The cabinet meeting on August 27 had decided to issue new bank notes with added features to make Nepali notes more easily recognisable outside the country too, apart from promoting the world heritage site in the Southern plains of the country and the holy place for the Buddhists and non-Buddhists around the world.

The new notes will be available in the market during Dashain, next month, when the central bank will supply fresh notes for the festivals as always, according to the central bank.

The Rs 100-denomination new notes have the Ashoka Pillar – the marker of the birthplace of Lord Buddha – with ‘Buddha was born in Lumbini’ message.

The notes also have the portrait of Mayadevi – the mother of Siddhartha Gautam Buddha  in silver metallic on the front.

Likewise, the central bank has also added a new feature – a black dot – that would help visually impaired also to recognise the Rs 100 denomination notes.
Unlike the current notes that are in circulation with the name of the central bank  printed in Devnagari script only, the new notes will also have 'Nepal Rastra Bank' printed in Latin script with the date of printing in both the Gregorian and Bikram Sambat calendar. However, the current bank notes in  circulation do not have the date of printing on them.

Currently, some Rs 217.73 billion worth bank notes of various denomination – ranging from Re 1 to Rs 1,000 – are in the circulation in the market. The central bank had printed Rs 221.76 billion worth bank notes but some Rs 4.21 billion is in the central bank’s stock.

The central bank supplies the new bank notes in the market during Dashain and takes equal amount of old bank notes back. If the notes are too old they will be destroyed.