Divya Nayan-a personal reading machine for visually impaired is easily available to the needy across the country through online registration- Dr Jitendra Singh

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today DivyaNayan is a personal reading machine for visually impaired developed by CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO), Chandigarh where any printed or digital document can be accessed in the form of speech output. The device is available to the visually impaired individuals and institutions through an online registration and booking portal https://divyanayan.csio.res.in/registration.php on its website.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, the Minister said that based on the principle of contact scanning, it can analyse a multi column document and provide seamless reading. User can place the device over the document to be read and manually scan it. The reading device uses language dependent optical character recognition to convert the image into text and a text to speech converter, further converts the text into audio. Audio files are stored in the machine and can be listened back. The device is handheld, standalone, portable, completely wireless and IoT enabled. It is currently available in Hindi, English, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Punjabi but is further compatible for other Indian and foreign languages. It has interfaces such as USB, Bluetooth, Wifi, LAN, Headphone etc. The salient features of the device are as below:

Feature/s:

1. Wireless and Portable – standalone, completely wireless and IoT enabled;
2. Multifunctional – read printed, e-books, e-news, recording and reading speech;
3. Multilanguage – currently supports Hindi, English, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Punjabi;
4. Online Processing – document batch processing organisation;
5. Document Storage – sync document;
6. Page orientation detection and correction;
7. Capable of reading Multi-Column document;
8. Rechargeable lithium ion battery; and
9. Internal memory of 32 GB for document storage

Some of the such other significant devices developed by CSIR for the benefit of the common man are as below:

1. Myoelectric Hand for the persons having below elbow amputation;
2. Electronic Knee for the persons havingabove knee amputation;
3. Electronic Control Module for powered wheelchair; and
4. 3D Printed Orthosis for children with congenital hemiparesis.