For the sake of uniformity, simplicity and good order, it is desirable to follow the domestic system of numbering by all organisations that have a responsibility to report their financials to the Indian public at large
Though in India we use English language in all our business communications, in so far as writing of numbers is concerned, we mostly use the Indian system in our daily life. Even in our schools and colleges Indian systems of numbering is generally taught, and this is generally the norm in all financial reporting of facts and figures. However, as there appears to be no guidelines in this regard so far, we find that a few organisations and institutions still publish their statistics in English system, which might cause some amount of confusion while interpreting the figures, particularly if we are not well versed in the English system.
For example, the exact way of writing Indian and English numbers is as under:
The Indian numbering system is written differently and sounds differently too when it reaches six digits. The positioning of ‘coma’ in written form is slightly different between the two systems as seen above.
The Central Government publishes all its statistics in the Indian system in lakhs and crores, and in all its annual budgets too, the figures are mentioned as per the Indian system. All the public sector organisations publish their reports using only the Indian system of numbers, so also all the public and the private sector banks in the country.
The Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) follows only the Indian system of numbers in all its statistical reports and other communications. Only while referring to the foreign investment flows and with regard to statistics relating global depository receipts (GDRs) and American depository receipts (ADRs), that they naturally refer to the English system of millions and billions, as it is stated in foreign currency, mostly in US dollars.
However, in the absence of clear cut guidelines from SEBI, some of the listed companies, particularly those having foreign parentage, publish their quarterly and annual reports using the English system of numbers, though majority of the companies use only the Indian system.
RBI is the lone exception:
The only exception is Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has been publishing most of its reports on banking statistics using only the English system with figures mentioned in millions and billions. Sometimes, we even see casual press releases and other communications of RBI mention the figures in the English system. The last annual report as on 30 June 2014 of RBI submitted to the Government contains most of the banking statistics in rupees but this is expressed using English system i.e. in millions and billions. This system of publishing the reports in English system may be derived from the British era as RBI was set up during the British rule. In fact the first two Governors of RBI were British nationals. Sir Osborne Smith was the first Governor of RBI from 1 April 1935 to 30 June 1937 and was followed by Sir James Braid Taylor who continued as Governor till 17 February 1943. Possibly the English system of numbering started during their tenure is continuing even today in RBI, though all subsequent Governors of RBI are Indians. Sir CD Deshmukh was the first Indian Governor from 11 August 1943 to 30 June 1949.
However, almost all the banks both in the public and private sector publish their quarterly and annual reports using only the Indian system.
Need to educate our children in both the numbering systems:
Recently, during the summer camp of high school children, one of the teachers asked questions on English numbering system, which many children were not aware of. It is not their fault as English system of writing numbers may not taught in most of the schools at present. But one of the parents is said to have commented that it was too much for children to learn so many different systems followed in different countries. Contradicting this, another parent is reported to have said that if our children can learn three languages from their early age, it should not be difficult for them to learn both the numbering systems simultaneously.
With globalisation of Indian economy, there is ample scope for our people to participate in the global trade. In fact, it is estimated that India will have surplus manpower of four to five crores over the next decade, and India is expected to be the biggest supplier of workforce to the world in the coming years. It is, therefore, necessary for our youth to be prepared to tackle global challenges. Obviously, it is advantageous for our children to be equipped with certain amount of general knowledge on global finance at least at the post secondary level of education, if it is not done already.
Standardising all reports under the Indian system is helpful for general public:
Notwithstanding what is stated above, in the interest of standardising all the statistical information and to maintain uniformity in financial communications, it is desirable that RBI too follows the Indian system in all its publications, particularly when the figures are in rupees, thereby making it easy and simple for the public to interpret the figures released by all institutions in our country. RBI, if it so desires, can always publish their reports in two separate formats, one using the Indian numbers for the Indian public and the other using the English numbers for the use of foreign Central banks, who might prefer to read in their own system.
SEBI too may issue guidelines that all listed companies should publish their quarterly and annual reports using Indian system of numbers, though they are free to publish such reports in their own websites under both the Indian and English systems for the benefit of their foreign partners and investors,
Though conversion from one system to another is quite easy, for the sake of uniformity, simplicity and good order, it is desirable to follow the Indian system of numbering by all organisations that have a responsibility to report their financial performance to the Indian public at large.
(
The author is a financial analyst, writing for Moneylife under the pen-name ‘Gurpur’.)
I grew up at the cusp of metrication. 1957. The old system was such a pain; something that one realised only when one started using the metric system. Not until then.
If we do not want to keep up with the world, in short join it, there will be demands for more Indian systems. The annas, paisas and pies system. Or further back to the kos, the tola, the tipri, and whatnot. Even the 'cotter' in liquor is 250 ccs. Hopefully!
No, sorry. We have to adapt. Or be left behind. Moreover, the western is more symmetric. A comma after every three digits. Makes sense.
Standardisation is what the world at large is comfortable with.
Extreme Xenophobia can be dangerous.
I actually could not understand the real object of discussion in this forum. Is the objective to glorify and popularize the 'lakh-crore' lingo or is it to shift commas (in large figures) to help people who are familiar with 'lakh-crore' lingo? If it's the former, why do the champions of 'lakh-crore' lingo stop only with lakh and crore? They should also advocate use of 'arab' [100 Cr], 'kharab' [10,000 Cr], 'neel' [10 Lakh Cr], 'padm' [10 Cr Cr], 'shankh' [1 Lakh Lakh Cr], 'gulshan' [10,000 Cr Cr], etc. to thoroughly confuse people. If the objective is to to shift commas (in large figures) to help people who are familiar with 'lakh-crore' lingo to understand, I don't know what stops them. Microsoft Excel, for example, has already built this functionality to format large numbers, if one prefers. If you want to change the default format from millions to lakhs, you can change the Region and Language settings to English (India). Alternatively in Excel, you can also press Ctrl 1 to go to formatting and choose custom formatting, then custom format numbers to show commas after specific number of digits.
Standardization is a fast track to progress. When the day dawns when India would dominate world commerce and business, we could think about standardizing the world's vocabulary to 'lakh-crore' lingo. Till then, it's advantageous to us and the young generation of Indians who want to integrate with the world to go with 'million-billion-trillion' jingo.
Rather than pick one as more desirable why not request RBI to use both systems when they publish their data.
After all, there is nothing sacrosanct in the systems per se. Let us make things easier for the people who use them to make important decisions.
S.N. NUMBERS Power Western Indian General / Commercial
0 0 Of Ten Zero Shunya Shun
1 1 0 Unit Eka Ek
2 10 1 Ten Dasha Das
3 100 2 Hundred Shaha Shou
4 1,000 3 Thousand Sahasra Hazaar
5 10,000 4 Ten Thousand Ayuta Das Hazaar
6 1,00,000 5 Hundred Thousand Lakshya Ek Lakh
7 10,00,000 6 Million Niyuta Das Lakh
8 1,00,00,000 7 Ten Million Koti Karod
9 10,00,00,000 8 Hundred Million Arbuda Das Karod (Arab)
10 1,00,00,00,000 9 Billion Brunda Sau Karod
11 10,00,00,00,000 10 Ten Billion Kharba Hazaar Karod (Kharab)
12 1,00,00,00,00,000 11 Hundred Billion Nikharba Das Hazaar Karod
13 10,00,00,00,00,000 12 Trillion Shankha Ek Lakh Karod
14 1,00,00,00,00,00,000 13 Ten Trillion Padma Das Lakh Karod
15 10,00,00,00,00,00,000 14 Hundred Trillion Sagar
16 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 15 Quadrillion Antya
17 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 16 Ten Quadrillion Madhya
18 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 17 Hundred Quadrillion Pararddha
19 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,000 18 Pentallion
As for the names of places, yes, I agree that we should rename them. Maybe start with Punjab and Odisha? They should be Panjab and Orisha. Seeing as the people can't even spell their own names/places/words properly, your argument stands feebly.
Rather than prescribing some sort of blind nationalistic/xenophobic agenda, why not consider doing things based on their actual rationale? Use the Western numbering system in English, but use the full-fledged Indian number system for Indic languages. Switch to driving on the right side of the road, and start using the IEC 60906-1 standard for power sockets/plugs. It's not about eschewing everything foreign, it's about eschewing things that don't make sense anymore regardless of their origin.
Psychologically, two digit (order of hundreds) is also a decent approximation for estimating numbers for a human mind. For example, we can feel the distinction between, say, 67 and 68 but the numbers 67.2 and 67.4 tend to be nearly same for human minds.
As an addition, I would also like to add the term 'arab' (100 crore) as part of the standard. There are two advantages to this: it makes it easier to state very large numbers, and secondly, it maps directly to billion. 5 arab = 5 billion. Billion has become a popular term for large numbers. For example, you can say the population of India is 1.3 arab, or movies having box office collections of Rs. 1 arab or more...
Bhave
I am unsure, but the change came probably after a welcome govt. diktat!