NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon come out with a mobile app that will read out the denomination of currency notes for the visually-challenged population.
The central bank has started the process of scouting for a vendor that can develop the mobile application for aiding the visually impaired in identifying the denominations of banknotes.
As mentioned in the tender documents, the RBI said the mobile app will be able to identify the denomination of legal tender banknotes of Mahatma Gandhi Series and Mahatma Gandhi (New) series by scanning the image of the notes with the mobile phone camera.
RBI also wants the app to have the capability to identify other older banknotes and even generate an audio notification intimating the currency note denomination to the user.
This means that seconds after you scan a currency note using the mobile app, it will read out the denomination of the currency note.
If the image is not captured correctly through your mobile phone camera, then the app will ask you to try again.
The RBI also wants the app to be useful even for those who are both visually challenged and hearing impaired. The central bank wants the app to have the ability to declare the denomination through non-sonic mode such as vibration mode.
The RBI app can also be used to count notes later on as it will store the logs of all notes read by it.
Stating that cash constitutes the most important means of transaction in India, the RBI said identification of denomination of the banknote is key to successful completion of cash based transactions by the visually impaired persons.
The apex bank said it has already used intaglio printing based identification marks for helping the visually challenged in identification of denomination of banknotes of ₹100 and above.
At present, banknotes in the denominations of ₹10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 2,000 are in circulation, besides Re 1 notes issued by the Centre.
