Nepal issues Rs 100 currency notes featuring Indian territories

Nepal’s central bank on Thursday issued new Rs 100 currency notes featuring a revised map that includes the Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura territories, the regions India maintains belong to it.

The new note from the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) bears the signature of previous Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. The date of issuance of the bank note is 2081 BS, which denotes the previous year, 2024.

In May 2020, the KP Sharma Oli-led government unveiled a new political map, showing Lipulek, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura areas as Nepal’s territory. Later, it was endorsed by Parliament.

India reacted sharply to Nepal’s move at the time, calling the revised map a “unilateral act” and cautioning Kathmandu that such “artificial enlargement” of territorial claims would not be acceptable to it.

India maintains that Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura belong to it.

Talking about the updated version of the map, an NRB spokesperson on Thursday said the map was already in the old Rs 100 bank note, and it had been revised as per the government’s decision.

Among various denominations of bank notes, such as Rs 10, Rs 50, Rs 500, and Rs 1,000, only the Rs 100 currency note bears Nepal’s map, he clarified.

Nepal’s new Rs 100 bank note features Mt Everest on its left side, while a watermark of Nepal’s national flower, Rhododendron, is on the right.

A faint green colour map of Nepal is in the background at the centre of the bank note. The Ashoka Pillar is printed near the map with the text “Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha”.

On the back side of the currency, there is a picture of a horned rhino. The bank note also has a security thread and an embossed black dot, which helps blind people to recognise it.

Nepal shares a border of over 1,850 km with five Indian states — Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.