MANI which stands for Mobile Aided Note Identifier is a mobile app launched by the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and team to help the visually impaired. The app helps people identify the denomination of the Indian currency notes.
The central bank introduced several different currency notes, with variations in the sizes and designs after the demonetisation in 2016. The new Mahatma Gandhi Series banknotes of 10, 20, 50,100,200, 500 and 2,000 have been released in the past few years. There have been many reports of problems faced by the visually-challenged in identifying these new currency notes.
"This new application will help 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
The app once installed can be used offline and supports voice commands on available devices. It works by scanning the notes with the camera which gives an audio output in two languages English and Hindi. MANI is capable of identifying the denominations of banknotes by checking front, reverse and half folded notes and at different light conditions like normal, daylight, low light. The app doesn't authenticate if a note is genuine or counterfeit. 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.
The MANI app is available on both android and ios devices.