Dr Idrajit Coomaraswamy
was
appointed the Governor of the Centarl Bank on 2016 July 4th by president
Mithripala Serisena
on temination of the term of Arjuna Mahendran on 2016 June 30th.
Arjuna Mahendran had served only the remainder of the six year term of Ajith Nivard Cabraal,
and did not seek a new term consequent to an alleged Bond Scam.
Photo shows Dr. Idrajit Coomaraswamy placing the specimen signature to be used in currency notes.
In early July 2016 I was told by a realiable source that DeLaRu was still printing notes dated 2015-07-04 with the old CBSL governors signature. However in late August 2016 I was told that DeLaRu had started printing Notes with new CBSL govenors signature.
CBSL issued, for circulation, currency notes with new signatures on the "Development, Prosperity and Sri Lanka Dancers" theme dated 2016-07-04 in 2017 April with no press announcement.
An image of a new Rs50 note was first posted on SLNS list on 2017
April 8th by Methsiri Premawansha who had got it from a Super Market.
The next day Brig. Siri Munasingha got some Rs500 notes from an Bank ATM.
On April 11th I got new Rs50 from Bank of Ceylon.
There had been no announcement by CBSL.
The Rs500 being released was unexpected since very few of 2015 Rs500 notes were released. The prefix T/131 implies that CBSL printed 15M with ArjunaM signature although only 2M has been seen in Circulation for a long time, till I got T/125 around the time new signatures were released.
CBSL did not released a full set into circulation for 2017 Sinhala and Tamil New Year Season. When I visited CBSL on Tuesday 2017 April 11th I was told they had no new signature notes in CBSL cash counter. CBSL webpage which had not been updated since 2015 November, was finally updated on 2017 May 15th in response to my RTI request 11/17.
| Denomiation | First Serial | Last Serial | Issued | |
| Rs 20 | W/411 000K | W/495 1000K | 85M | |
| Rs 50 | V/161 000K | V/265 1000K | 105M | |
| Rs 500 | T/131 000K | T/185 779K | 55M | |
| Rs1000 | S/323 000K | S/350 1000K | 28M | |
| Rs5000 | R/91 000K | R/120 1000K | 30M | |
| SNIM rejection | ||||
| Rs 100 | U/471 000K | U/588 199K | 110M | 6.5% |
| Rs 500 | T/186 000K | T/207 778K | 20M | 8.9% |
| Total | 130M | 6.9% | ||
A total of Rs233.5 Billion Rupees was printed in the 11.6 months between 2016-07-04 to the next date 2017-05-22. About Rs20 Billion a month on average.
The Mintage as per Answer to Question 2 of CBSL RTI 046/2019 dated 2019-06-12
A new Finance Minister Mr Mangala Samaraweera took office on
2017 May 25 ending this pair of signatures
in less than 1 year. RTI 11/17 reply dated 2017-05-15 just 10 days
before Mr Mangala Samaraweera took office did not mention the printing
of any Rs 20, Rs100 and Rs1000 notes. However according to RTI 66/18
dated 2018-10-23 issued 17 months after Mr Mangala Samaraweera took
office, I am informed that notes of these denominations with the RK+IC
signatures were not only printed, that I quote
CBSL is yet to receive the currency notes bearing the last serial
number of the RK+IC series (Except for the Rs5000).
The Rs1000 dated 2016-07-04 was the last to be issued into circulation 2019 April,
34 months after Indrajit Coomaraswamy became Governor of CBSL and
even 23 months after Mangala Samaraweera became Finance Minster in 2017 May.
Please Help Track Prefix+Serial when Date on Banknote change. Thanks.