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It’s time India switches to millions and billions instead of lakhs and crores

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The Indian way of writing numbers, particularly large ones, results in a lot of unneeded mental gymnastics. It might be a good time to bring it to an end. 

So how big is the Indian economy this year? If you were to put it in US dollars, the figure would be something approaching $2.5 trillion — which is easy to say and write. But if you were to put it in rupees, most people would say: About 160 lakh crore, or (rarely) Rs 1.6 crore crore. Numbers thus expressed are not only clumsy (like saying million million) but also, as a reader has pointed out, confound the logic of the Indian way of writing numbers. This is to have a comma after every two digits beyond the initial three, and different from the international counting system which puts a comma after every three digits. One lakh crore, if written in figures, would jumble up the two systems and state it as 1,00,000,00,00,000 — note that there is a three-digit aberration between commas, interspersed in the sequence of two-digit demarcations.

As it happens, there is a way to express the number simply and correctly in rupees — and that is to say Rs 16 neel (13 zeroes after 16). The problem is that no one uses this term — not the government, not the Reserve Bank, in fact no official or private body other than some Indian language publications which routinely use arab (for 100 crore). Perhaps this corruption of the Indian way of counting is because, over the years, everyone got used to talking of thousands of crores. Having got that far, it must have been a natural progression to lakh crores, and perhaps even crore crores.

A picture of TN Ninan, chairman of Business Standard Private LimitedMost people are probably not aware that there are Indian terms for numbers that run to more than eight digits. Hence, Rs 20,000 crore should more correctly be written as Rs 2 kharab. A padma would be better than 10 crore crore; and 100 padmas would be a shankh — which in international terminology would be 100 quadrillion.

These terms are not in common usage. The question is whether they should be. If one is to move away from today’s mongrel version of counting large numbers, one should move to the proper use of Indian numerical terms, as designed; or switch to the internationally accepted system of million, billion, and the rest. The current zeitgeist would weigh in favour of reverting to the purity of the original Indian concepts, and therefore have a new term introduced with the addition of every two digits.

But this runs up against other problems. In today’s digital world, computer programmes are automatically set to introduce a comma after every three digits — in line with the international system and usage. The result is that a table giving a company’s financial results might state the sales turnover as 1,000,000 — but note at the top of the table that all figures are in lakhs. One has to do some mental jugglery to figure out that the figure is actually Rs 10,000 crore. The second problem is that Indian numbers would become incomprehensible to all outsiders who already struggle with understanding lakh and crore, and who would now be asked to also be familiar with arab, neel, and shankh, and also aware that padma is not just a woman’s name.

Given the choice, a modern economy with strong international linkages should switch to million, billion, and so on. If so, the average Indian (also the government, RBI, press, etc) would be required to make the mental adjustment and give up lakh and crore. This may not be much of an ask, as one can say 160 trillion instead of 16 neel. In any case, we have already moved from annas and pice to the decimal system for currency, from the variously defined bigha to the standardised hectare, and made other similar adjustments. One more adjustment should not therefore be too daunting an ask. Besides, many Indians would escape the constant mental gymnastics of converting millions and billions into lakhs and crores, and frequently committing errors.

By Special Arrangement with Business Standard

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10 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t agree with this article. Indian Numeric System is certainly a simple and ordered system. As an Indian, I don’t feel any need to change it to something foreign. Anyone outside from India who can’t understand it, I would say ‘Just Learn it’.

  2. अगर आप विकिपीडिया पर जाए तो आपको पता चलेगा की हमारा इंडियन सिस्टम उनसे काफी बेहतर है क्या अपनी चीजे केवल इसलिए छोड़ दें क्युकी अमेरिका कर रहा है पूरे इंडियन सबकोंटिनेंट मतलब सात आठ देशों में इस प्रणाली का प्रयोग किया जाता है एक पहचान है हमारी इसके कारण
    और मेरे हिसाब से million billion practical नहीं लगते मुझे।

  3. This article’s suggestion goes to prove that not all journalism can be supported. Indian numbering system is a lot more sophisticated than international system. It’s easier to read larger numbers, check Wikipedia for the the dummy version if you can’t follow.

  4. i wonder why was it there in the first place. I am still trying to look for an answer as to why Indian system is different from that of Americans and who made these.

  5. I feel it easy using the Indian numerical system. These trillion and billion stuff rather makes me feel like mental gymnastics. Mr Ninan must understand that well. He can choose to throw away many things, until one day his identity gets thrown out.

  6. The article should have been on the reverse tone. India should start using its authentic system of lakhs crores arab and kharabs.
    Rather , as in every other aspect, it is trying to follow what the US and UK does.
    Its the opposite that confuses us. We all study lakhs and crores in schools and suddenly you expect us to talk in millions. Lakhpati and crorepati are common terms understood by indians. Stop this blind following of foreign influence. No different than 200 years ago.

    • The point is not to throw away the Indian numbering system entirely, as it makes complete sense to use it in native languages. The point is that it should’ve never been used in English to begin with, since it’s not native and therefore, clumsy.

  7. Indian numerical demarcation system is more practical and makes better sense of how big a number is. The moment the number is going beyond 1000, counting in thousand comes in help to make clearer picture. Where as Lakh / Crore counting need not wait for 1000x, instead 100x helps in making an impact that number s are going bigger. Please understand that our system in not uniform smaller and bigger, 00,00,000, signifying that 1000 is smaller number and 00,000 is big enough number.
    Indians should use and follow our system.
    People who are into the international million/billion system can easily do the conversion back and forth, we need not change our system for their ease.

    Further, We should continue to use dozen, inch, feet where applicable.

    • Uh…no. Inches and feet are part of the imperial system, and are clunky and pointless. India should stop using them (although, those units have technically been illegal for over 50 years, so it should maybe start enforcing its laws). Using the metric system fully is the way to stop wasting money and time teaching kids what inches and feet are and dealing with those archaic units mixed with the other units.

  8. Maybe just evolve the numeric system in a hybrid fashion :- Lakhs, 10 lakh = 1 mn, 10mn = 1 crore, 100 cr = 1bn, 1000bn = 1 trillion and so on – no confusion. On larger numbers we converge to world while on smaller ones we retain ours.

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