The Indian 20-rupee banknote (20) is a common denomination of the

Indian rupee The Indian rupee ( symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 ''paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use wh ...

. The current 20 banknote in circulation is a part of the

Mahatma Gandhi Series The Gandhi Series of banknotes are issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the legal tender of Indian rupee. The series is so called because the obverse of the banknotes prominently display the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Since its introd ...

. The Reserve Bank introduced the 20 note in the Mahatma Gandhi Series in August 2001. Making it one of the last denominations of the series to be introduced in the series; other than the 5, which was introduced in November 2001. It was first introduced by the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...

in 1972 to contain the cost of production of banknotes in circulation. With the introduction of this banknote, the Reserve Bank started a major redesign of the motif of the Lion Capital Series banknotes.

Mahatma Gandhi New Series

On 10 November 2016, the then Economic Affairs Secretary

Shaktikanta Das Shaktikanta Das (born 26 February 1957) is serving as the current & 25th List of Governors of Reserve Bank of India, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He was earlier a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, FifteenthFinance Commi ...

announced a new 20 banknote would be released in the

Mahatma Gandhi New Series The Mahatma Gandhi New Series of banknotes are issued by the Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It ...

in the coming months. The Reserve Bank of India has announced on 26 April 2019 that it would shortly issue a new 20 note. The new denomination has a motif of

Ellora Caves Ellora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India. It is one of the largest rock-cut Hindu temple cave complexes in the world, with artwork dating from the period 600–1000 CE., Quote: "These 34 m ...

on the back, a

UNESCO World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

site in Aurangabad district,

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

on the reverse, depicting the country's cultural heritage continuing with the theme in Mahatma Gandhi New Series banknotes. Size of the bank note will be 129 mm × 63 mm. This is used alongside to the new

Indian 20-rupee coin The Indian 20-rupee coin (20) is a denomination of the Indian rupee. The ₹20 coin is the highest-denomination circulation coin minted in India since its introduction in 2019. The present ₹20 coin is released for circulation. The release of t ...

History

Lion Capital series

Design

The obverse side featured the Lion Capital. The reverse side featured the chariot wheel of the

Konark Sun Temple Konark Sun Temple is a (year 1250) Sun temple at Konark about northeast from Puri city on the coastline in Puri district, Odisha, India.Mahatma Gandhi Series The Gandhi Series of banknotes are issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the legal tender of Indian rupee. The series is so called because the obverse of the banknotes prominently display the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Since its introd ...

is 129 × 63 mm green-yellow coloured, with the obverse side featuring a portrait of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

with a signature of the governor of

. It has the

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

feature to assist the visually challenged in identifying the currency. The reverse side features the famous Mount Harriet in

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

. As of 2012, the new sign has been incorporated into banknote of 20. In January 2014 RBI announced that it would be withdrawing from circulation all banknotes printed prior to 2005 by 31 March 2014. The deadline was later extended to 1 January 2015. Now further dead line was extended to 30 June 2016.

Security features

The security features of the 20 banknote include:RBI - 20 security features
/ref> *A windowed

security thread A security thread is a security feature of many banknotes to protect against counterfeiting, consisting of a thin ribbon that is threaded through the note's paper. Usually, the ribbon runs vertically, and is "woven" into the paper, so that it a ...

that reads 'भारत' (''Bharat in the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

script'') and 'RBI' alternately. *

Latent image {{citations needed, date=November 2015 A latent image is an invisible image produced by the exposure to light of a photosensitive material such as photographic film. When photographic film is developed, the area that was exposed darkens and forms ...

of the value of the banknote on the vertical band next to the right hand side of

's portrait. *

Watermark A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...

of Mahatma Gandhi that is a mirror image of the main portrait. *The number panel of the banknote is printed in embedded

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

fibers and optically variable ink. *Since 2005 additional security features like machine-readable security thread, electrotype watermark, and year of print appear on the bank note.

Languages

As like the other

banknotes, the 20 banknote has its amount written in 17 languages. On the obverse, the denomination is written in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

. On the reverse is a language panel which displays the denomination of the note in 15 of the 22

official languages of India There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that, "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official pur ...

. The languages are displayed in alphabetical order. Languages included on the panel are Assamese,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

, Konkani,

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, Nepali,

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

, Punjabi,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Banknotes of India Rupee Twenty-base-unit banknotes