Saturday, February 25, 2017

How India got converted into metric system by Nehru


History

Before metrication, the government of India followed the Indian Weights and Measures Act passed in 1870 which used the British Imperial system. However, many other indigenous systems were in use in other parts of the country and this was a constant problem with government officials and the public at large.
P N Seth was the founder and secretary of the Indian Decimal Society, whose aim it was to push for the introduction of the metric system in India. P N Seth was assisted by others in the society, such as Professors Dr H L Roy, Dr S K Mitra, and P C Mahalanobis, and other leading Indian scientists. Since 1930, they advocated for discarding the old chaotic system by writing in newspapers, journals, participating in debates and distributing literature.
During the post-WW II interim government, there were attempts to introduce some standardisation in weights and measures but the conservative section of the ruling party never allowed it to be passed. Then outstanding scientific personalities and public figures were mobilised by the Indian Decimal Society. P N Seth put forward a scheme for metrification of currency on 17 January 1944, which was finally adopted in Indian Parliament in 1955.




Naye Paise song written by Rajendra Krishna beautifully picturized in 
I.S.Johar



HOW INDIA GOT CONVERTED TO METRIC SYSTEM BY JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Among Jawaharlal Nehru's many ambitions for India was to make its measures metric, its thermometers Centigrade and its coinage decimal. Easier said than done. Through the length and breadth of India, there were more than 140 different systems of weights and measures. Dates and records were kept according to 30 different calendars, at least one of which, instituted more than 500 years ago with a slight miscalculation, has slipped out of phase by 23.2 days, so that Hindu dances meant for moonlit nights were often performed in total darkness. To top it all, the Indian coinage system, based on the coinage standardized by conquering British in 1835, was at least as unwieldy as that used in Britain itself.

Having already established a national calendar of twelve months (more or less comparable to the Gregorian) and threatening soon to put weights and measures on the metric system, Nehru's government chose to inaugurate a new decimal coinage. In place of the rupee (20¢), anna (1/16 rupee) and pie (1/12 anna) of the past, the new money consist solely of rupees and naye paise (literally: new coins) worth .01 rupees. The trouble was that for three years both sets of coins was to be used at once, and since there wass not always a way of translating pies or annas into a precise number of naye paise, the government has had to decree a system of what parimutuel bettors call "breakage." i.e., the rounding off of small fractions that don't count too
As the first of 610.000,000 new coins poured into the bazaars, India's newspapers carried conversion tables with instructions on how to use them. Sample: "To make a payment of 36 naye paise, you first pay 4 annas or 25 naye paise, then pay the balance of 11 naye paise by tendering 1 anna and 9 pies."

In Calcutta, where thrifty Bengalis ran wild in 1953 over a ⅓cent rise in streetcar fares, mobs rioted around the post offices when it was discovered that the price of stamps would be rounded off in favor of the government. In industrial Kanpur, bus service was tied up for hours when bus drivers discovered they could not drive and argue about fares at the same time. Mothers fretted that the new coins were too easy for kids to swallow.

1930's AND 1940's INDIAN COINS{BRITISH RULE}

















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 INDIA COINS BEFORE CONVERSION TO METRIC SYSTEM 1957



















From 1947 to 1950, the older coins of pre-independence were still valid. This represented the currency arrangements during the transition period up to the establishment of the Indian Republic. The Monetary System remained unchanged at One Rupee consisting of 192 pies.
·         1 Rupee = 16 Annas
·         1 Anna = 4 Pice
·         1 Pice = 3 Pies


INDIAN COINS AFTER CONVERSION TO METRIC SYSTEM 1957

















INDIAN COINS AFTER 1964