Moral deed for noble spirits! RBI launches mobile app MANI for visually challenged to identify currency notes

Mumbai, January 02: Viewing to aid the visually impaired people identify the denomination of currency notes, the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday launched a mobile app named MANI (Mobile Aided Note Identifier), citing the occassion of New Year 2020.

 

 

"Technological progress has opened up new opportunities for making Indian banknotes more accessible for the visually impaired, thereby facilitating their day to day transactions. With this the visually challenged people can identify the denomination of a currency note by using the mobile app", the RBI said. "The application also works offline once installed", the central bank added.

While the users can freely download the app, called 'MANI', from Android Playstore or iOS App Store, the application is capable of scanning the currency notes using the camera of the mobile phone. It also gives audio output in Hindi and English.

 

The central bank has introduced several currency notes, under 'Mahatma Gandhi Series', with significant changes in the sizes and designs after the demonetization in November 2016. Under the new series, banknotes of ₹10, ₹20, ₹50, ₹100, ₹200, ₹500 and ₹2,000 have been released in the past couple of years. However, there were reports of problems faced by visually-challenged people in identifying these new currency notes. The RBI also said the app does not authenticate a note as either genuine or counterfeit.