Few 200 rupee notes still around

This note, an in-between currency after the 100 rupee note and 500 rupee note, is considered by many to be a convenient denomination but in recent times only a few notes are found.

According to Dammika Gunaratne, Deputy Superintendent of the Currency Department of the Central Bank, the note was printed in 1998 in limited numbers as it was a commemorative note to mark the country's 50th independence celebration and therefore won't be printed again. He said it is standard practice for commemorative currency to printed or minted (depending on whether it is a note or a coin) only once.

Any soiled notes brought to the Central Bank are destroyed by the Bank if they consider it to be unserviceable, he said but declined to give the number of destroyed notes, nor as to how many were printed.

He said destroyed notes going out of circulation plus some going into private collections could explain the reduction of the number of notes in circulation. The 200 rupee note was printed, for the first time in Sri Lanka, on polymer plastic instead of the special paper that is usually used. The polymer note has a longer lifespan than the special paper used for other currency notes and is favoured in countries such as Australia and Papua New Guinea, but public acceptance of the polymer note in Sri Lanka is low, Gunaratne said.