New ink to curb fake passports, counterfeit currency: Govt

Union Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said that a new security ink has been developed to weed out fake passports and counterfeit currency.

The formulation can be used to check the authenticity of various official documents such as passports, government documents, tamper evident labels and identity cards.

In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said, "The CSIR-National Physical Laboratory has developed a bi-luminescent security ink which glows in red and green colours when illuminated by two different excitation sources at 254 nanometers (nm) and 365 nm, respectively."

He also informed the Upper House that the ink was prepared in a batch of 1 kg and given to the Bank Note Press (BNP), Dewas, a unit of Security Printing Minting Corporation of India Ltd. (SPMCIL) in the national capital. The ink has been found comparable to the standards that are in use. IANS