Why not Government of India think of introducing new currency notes?

Indian currency notes may need a new look as the people are looking at the same kind of currency notes for quite sometime now. Indian Rupee notes are of two categories. India uses notes of the following denominations 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000. One Rupee (basic unit) is being issued by Government of India and bears the signature of the Finance Secretary. Rest of the notes are issued by Reserve Bank of India and carry the facsimile of the signature of its Governor.Of these the usage of coins in place of currency notes is more prevalent in case of those with denominations of Rs 1, 2 and 5.

There is recent news items stating that the Government of India is thinking of reissuing the One Rupee currency notes which were last printed around 10-15 years back. The reverse and obverse images of the last one rupee note is as follows

Similarly the Rs 2 note which is rare to find now a days appears as below

If you look at these two notes the obverse side of the notes carry the lion capital which is the official emblem of Government of India. On the reverse both these notes carry the achievements of the country in various fields.

Bank notes from Rs 5 used to carry the Lion Capital till 1996 on the obverse side. A change was made in 1996 so that from that point onwards a picture of Mahatma Gandhi adorns the observe side of these notes. The notes are issued is different colours and of different sizes with Rs 1000 note being the largest and Rs 5 being the smallest. The notes currently in circulation look like this

All these notes look the same despite the colour change and as the face adorning the notes is the same with same features result in many counterfeit notes. India faced this problem of counterfeit notes  for several years (partly thanks even to the neighbouring country Pakistan). 

When the Congress party was in government they could not come to any conclusion as to what other leaders can adorn the Indian currency notes. It is understood that several names were discussed like those of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Dr Ambedkar, Sardar Patel and even Chhatrapati Shivaji. However, as most of the persons discussed though were national icons but belong to the Congress Party no further decision was taken and the only the face of Mahatma Gandhi was used. 

A good currency note should be very difficult to counterfeit with lots of features. The reason why faces are printed on the currency notes world over is that the humans have the innate ability to recognise faces and any changes in them are easily identified. However if you  are looking at the same face several times a day on all the available currency notes, it will be difficult however trained we may be to identify the minor changes which creep into counterfeits.

As current government says that it has the necessary wherewithal to change several things in the country, why not it think of changing the Indian Currency notes with possible new features and new faces. A suggest list may look something like Dr B R Ambedkar (architect of the Indian Constitution), Sardar Patel (Architect of Indian Union), Jawaharlal Nehru (First Prime Minister of India), Subhash Chandra Bose (Great Freedom Fighter), Rabindranath Tagore (writer of Indian Anthem) and may be even Pingali Venkaiah (person who designed Indian Flag) along with Mahatma Gandhi.

This will provide the much needed change as well as make the life of counterfeiters difficult.