Government of India plans to replace the paper currency notes with plastic currency notes, also called Polymer Notes.
In a Pilot project, RBI shall introduce  100 Crore pieces of Rs 10 plastic currency notes in five cities viz. Cochin, Mysore, Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar and Shimla. The cities have been chosen on the basis of their varied geographical locations.
A typical Plastic Currency Note used in Canada
This was revealed by Minister of State of Finance, Government of India, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
There are several advantages and benefits of Polymer Currency Notes compared to paper notes. These notes are expected to be  4 times more durable compared to the normal paper based notes.  These notes would have an average life span of five years, compared with one year for the paper notes. In the long run, it would save lots of money spent on re-printing of spoiled notes. Currently, the cost of printing a Rs. 10 note is close to Re. 1 while the cost of printing Rs 1000 note is about Rs. 5.
Besides studying the potential cost savings through plastic notes, the pilot project will also look into the environmental impact of the proposed plastic notes.
Being Polymer based notes, it would be much difficult to fake such notes, thus helping in curbing the menace of Fake Notes.
Polymer based notes were first introduced in Australia to prevent counterfeit of currency. Slowly, other countries like New Zealand,Canada, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Bermuda, Brunei and Vietnam have also adopted the system of such notes.