Visually impaired persons will no longer have to depend on their family or friends to read out the bill at a telephone booth. A machine manufactured by Tata Indicom reads aloud the bill amount. After the customer makes the call, the talking phone billing machine, ‘speaks’ the bill amount to its customer.

In a move to make the blind totally self-reliant, the new talking machine has been introduced at numerous telephone booths manned by blind entrepreneurs in the city of Mumbai. “Earlier, I needed my father or my daughter to read out the bill amount to me. It was a real problem. Now, with this machine, I do not need anybody to help me,” said Vilas Mahadeo Mahamunkar, a blind phone booth owner of Worli.

The talking billing machines, are being distributed free of cost, in a phased manner with a target of 100 machines per month. “We aim to have 5,000 talking billing machines all over India over the next few months,” said Vikas Shah, vice-president, Pay Telephony Business Unit.