Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India
India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has launched a mobile app in a bid to help visually impaired persons identify the denomination of currency notes.
Christened MANI (Mobile Aided Note Identifier), RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das launched the app on January 1, 2020, the central bank said in a press release that further added that the visually challenged can identify the denomination of a currency note by using the mobile app.
How does it work?
The application can scan the currency notes using the camera of the mobile phone and gives an audio output in Hindi and English and non-sonic modes such as vibration. It doesn’t require any internet and works in an offline mode too. However, the app does not provide the authenticity of currency by differentiating a genuine note from a counterfeit one. The app, which can be downloaded for free from both iOS and Android play store, also works offline once installed, the RBI added.
RBI said the idea to launch an app came up after reports of problems faced by visually-challenged persons in identifying these new currency notes.
It further added that Indian banknotes contain several features which enable the visually impaired (color blind, partially sighted and blind people) to identify them, viz., intaglio printing and tactile mark, variable banknote size, large numerals, variable color, monochromatic hues, and patterns.
Technological progress has opened up new opportunities for making Indian banknotes more accessible for the visually impaired, thereby facilitating their day to day transactions, it said.
Banknotes, under ‘Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series’, with significant changes in the sizes and designs were introduced after the demonetization of November 2016, when the INR 1,000 and INR 500 notes were spiked. Under the new series, currency notes of INR 10, INR 20, INR 50, INR 100, INR 200, INR 500 and INR 2,000 have been released in the past couple of years.
RBI isn’t the first such regulator to have launched an app for the visually-impaired. In 2011, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) had developed EyeNote, a free mobile device application aid for blind or visually impaired individuals to identify denominations of the US Federal Reserve notes from Series 1996. It is still in use.