RBI’s MANI to help visually-impaired identify currency notes

Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday launched a new mobile application to help visually-impaired persons in identifying the denomination of currency notes, an official said here.

Known as the Mobile Aided Note Identifier (MANI), the RBI app can be freely downloaded from Android Playstore or iOS App Store.

“This new application will help the visually-impaired people to identify the denomination of the Indian banknotes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series and Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series by capturing the image of the notes placed in front of the mobile’s rear camera. The app will generate audio and non-sonic notification intimating the currency note denomination to the user,” said an official.

Banknotes, under ‘Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series’, with significant changes in the sizes and designs were introduced after the demonetization of November 2016, when the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were spiked.

Under the new series, currency notes of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50, Rs 100, Rs 200, Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 have been released in the past couple of years.

However, there were reports of problems faced by visually-challenged persons in identifying these new notes and conducting their routine business.

The new RBI app will resolve the issues and also allow users to choose/change the language, select/change impairment, voice commands, currency identification using the camera, the history of identified currency for last 30 days, etc.

(IANS)