‘Your voice matters’: Sarvam AI CEO Pratyush Kumar offers lifetime access to 70-year-old speech-impaired cancer survivor
Sarvam AI CEO Pratyush Kumar has offered lifetime access to the company’s artificial intelligence models to a 70-year-old oral cancer survivor who appealed for affordable text-to-speech (TTS) technology to help people with speech disabilities communicate independently.
The offer followed an appeal by Raghunath AS on social media, highlighting the financial barriers that prevent people with speech impairments from using AI-powered voice-generation tools regularly.
Raghunath, who lost his ability to speak after battling oral cancer in 2015, said text-to-speech technology could help millions of people express themselves without depending on others to communicate their needs.
In his post on X, he described how he had spent years communicating through handwritten notes, many of which went unread or unanswered.
“I have spent years communicating through written notes, often unread or unanswered. At cancer hospitals, I see countless patients struggling to express their suffering. Our pain is ours, but our voice has become someone else’s,” he wrote.
He argued that text-to-speech AI was not merely a convenience for people with speech disabilities but an essential tool for restoring their independence.
“A doctor may not read my 100-word note, but could listen to it in under a minute,” Raghunath said, emphasising that India has an estimated 1.99 million people with speech disabilities.
What did Raghunath ask Sarvam AI for?
Raghunath pointed to the company’s per-character pricing model, arguing that the cost of using text-to-speech technology could make it difficult for people with disabilities to access the service regularly.
He urged Sarvam AI to consider introducing an affordable, unlimited monthly subscription specifically designed for people with disabilities, also referred to as Divyangjan.
How did Sarvam AI CEO Pratyush Kumar respond?
Responding to the appeal, Kumar thanked Raghunath and acknowledged that accessibility was central to the company’s broader AI ambitions.
“We agree that you shouldn’t have to count characters to be empowered by AI. We have credited your account with lifetime access to our models,” Kumar wrote on X.
He also invited other people using Sarvam’s technology for accessibility-related purposes to contact the company directly, promising that its team would work with them to address their requirements.
Kumar added that Sarvam AI intends to introduce a formal accessibility programme in the future.
What is text-to-speech AI and how does Sarvam’s tool work?
Text-to-speech (TTS) technology uses artificial intelligence to convert written text into spoken audio.
Also known as speech synthesis or voice generation, this technology allows users to convert messages, documents and other written content into speech.
It works in the opposite direction to speech-to-text (STT), which converts spoken language into written text.
Sarvam AI offers its text-to-speech service through its Bulbul V3 model, which the company says can generate natural-sounding speech with emotion.
According to its official website, the model supports 11 languages: Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Odia and English with an Indian accent. It also offers multiple speaker voices with different characteristics for each language.
