The Indian 50 paisa coin, popularly called Athanni, is a 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 ...

, equal to half a rupee, that is very rarely found in everyday circulation. Currently it is the lowest circulating denomination of the Indian rupee. The symbol for paisa is ( Indian Paisa symbol

). On 30 June 2011, when the 25 paisa and all other lower denomination coins were officially

demonetised Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in pa ...

, the 50 paise coin became the lowest circulating denomination of the Indian rupee.

History

Prior to 1957, the

was not

decimalised Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10. Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal ...

. From 1835 to 1957, the rupee was divided into 16

annas Annas (also Ananus or Ananias;Goodman, Martin, "Rome & Jerusalem", Penguin Books, p.12 (2007) , ; grc-x-koine, Ἅννας, ; 23/22 BC – death date unknown, probably around AD 40) was appointed by the Roman legate Quirinius as the first High ...

. Each anna was further divided into four

Indian pice Paisa (also transliterated as ''pice'', ''pesa'', ''poysha'', ''poisha'' and ''baisa'') is a monetary unit in several countries. The word is also a generalised idiom for money and wealth. In India, Nepal, and Pakistan, the ''Paisa'' currently equa ...

s and each pice into three

Indian pie A pie (abbreviated as Ps) was a unit of currency in India, Burma and Pakistan until 1947. It was the smallest currency unit, equal to of a paisa, of an anna or of a rupee. During the mid-nineteenth century, one pie was worth 12 cowry. Mintin ...

s till 1947 when the pie was demonetised. In 1955, the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...

amended the "

Indian Coinage Act {{Infobox legislation , short_title = THE INDIAN COINAGE ACT, 1906 , legislature = Parliament of India , image = , imagesize = 150 , imagealt = , caption = , lon ...

" to adopt the decimal system for coinage. Paisa coins were introduced in 1957, but from 1957 to 1964 the coin was called "Naya Paisa" (English: ''New Paisa''). On 1 June 1964, the term "Naya" was dropped and the denomination was simply called "One paisa". Paisa coins were issued as a part of "The Decimal Series". In 2019, new coins were adopted, but the 50 paise coins were not minted as they have ceased to be in common circulation.

References

Half-base-unit coins Coins of India Fifty-cent coins {{Authority control

History

See also

References