Country’s first Multilingual Braille Library Project for Visually Handicapped consisting two Braille Libraries sponsored by a Rotary Matching Grant Project implemented by Rotary Club of Pune Westend, in Association with Rotary Club of Eau Gallie, Florida, USA, and a matching grant from Rotary Foundation and developed by city based companies Modular Infotech Private Limited and Automatic Control Equipments Will soon be launched in the city
The Braille Library for use by visually challenged persons, and having a number of novel features will be launched at the hands of noted social activist Anil Awachat at the SM Joshi Hall on on TuesdayTwo city based institutions - Niwant Andh Mukta Vikasalaya, Viman Nagar, Pune, and Nirmalya Trust Bhandarkar Road, Pune - will house these libraries.
Speaking to reporters MR. Sachin Kadam, President of the Rotary Club Pune Westend The objectives of the project are - To set up reading libraries for the visually challenged students with a view to help provide them access to maximum reading material both for academic as well as other literary reading, ensuring that the libraries are located in such a way that maximum students are benefited by the same.
The Libraries use the technology of Microcomputer based Electronic Braille Readers with software for reading Indian Languages and English Braille. This technology has been developed by Modular Infotech and manufactured by ACE both Pune companies, incorporating very user-friendly features for the visually handicapped users and an efficient storage system for Braille Books which saves up to 98 % space, and gives a virtually unlimited life for the books, he added
Mr Raghunandan Joshi, the Joint Managing Director of Modular Infotech Private Limited said that the Braille Libraries, would be the first of their kind in India, and contain the following equipment in each library. Which includes - Five numbers of Microcomputer based electronic Braille Readers, from Automatic Control Equipments, Pune, one IBM compatible PC, Braille Library administrating software and Shree-Lipi Braille Software for automatic translation of books in Indian languages and English into Braille, from Modular Infotech, Pune, one Braille Embosser- for making hard-copies of books, High Speed Document Scanner with ADF, and Un-Interrupted Power Supply, for the equipment. He further said that the Braille embossers have been imported from Enabling Technologies USA and Index Braille Sweden, and the SARA scanner from Freedom Scientific USA.
The project initiated by the company with active participation of Rotary Club Pune Westend, will have salient features of the Braille Library that features books in all Indian languages and English can be converted to Braille from their soft copies.
After the conversion to Braille, these books are indexed and are stored in pen-drive storage devices in a compact manner. A normal 2 GB pen-drive can store upto 2000 or more books. A Library administration specially designed for the Braille Library, allows the pen-drives to be loaded with the books and their index lists. From these, required books can be stored for reading into the BRAILLE-MITRA Reader. Thus each Reader can work independently without the need of a PC.
Mr. Joshi further added d that the key-unit of the Braille Library - BRAILLE MITRA is a Refreshable Braille Reader for visually handicapped and sightless people for reading in English and all 11 Indian Languages in Braille. It uses a new technology to have 'soft Braille books' which consists of Braille characters formed in a row, with each character having six dots made by smooth plastic pins, which are raised selectively, by electro-mechanical means to make a line of Braille characters.
The 'feel' of this line, to the sightless person's index fingers is exactly same as that of 'feeling' an embossed Braille line in a Braille book. This Braille line, is driven by a micro-computer, which provides many additional features to the reader. BRAILLE-MITRA has the great advantage that after the person 'reads' a line, the next line appears automatically on the same place, and the person can easily read the display word-by-word and line-by-line. BRAILLE-MITRA can keep showing any number of books 'loaded' in its micro-computer's memory.
The sightless person can virtually get an unlimited number of books for Braille reading on BRAILLE-MITRA, provided of course these books are available in Braille in soft form, as a computer file. BRAILLE-MITRA is silent, and has a variety of navigation features for the reader to make Braille reading a truly wonderful experience.
Mr. Pradeep Newalkar, Ex-President of the Rotary Club Pune Westend, in whose tenure the project was initiated, said that two institutions that have been chosen by the Rotary Club for setting up the Braille libraries - Niwant Andh Mukta Vikasalaya, Viman Nagar, Pune, and Nirmalya Trust Bhandarkar Road, Pune - will make the maximum utilization of these resource, taking into account requirements of their Locations at places in Pune where most visually challenged students are benefited.
Both Institutions being registered trusts with the Charity Commissioner, and having their track record over the past several years in the field of working for the visually handicapped. Their credentials of being highly dedicated in their work for the visually impaired has been verified by the Rotary Club Pune Westend..
Mr Shashank Tilak, Project Coordinator of the Rotary Club of Pune Westend said that the reading of any text material by sightless and very low-vision persons all over the world is achieved through the Braille script, which is a system of raised dots on a paper or a surface. This system of writing and reading being used by all blind people, was invented over 170 years ago (1834) in France by Louis Braille.
Today Braille books and readers are very essential for the education of the blind, and Rotary Club of Pune Westend has realized this need of the society, and taken efforts to contact its counterparts in USA and also the Rotary Foundation, to fund this project in full. The total value of the project being Rs 16.8 Lacs, he added.
With their combined help, and technology developed by Modular Infotech, - Rotary Club's implementation Partners for this project, this unique concept has become a reality, which will go a long way in promoting literacy for the visually handicapped students in Pune.
Dr Mehernosh Cooper - Chairman of Modular Infotech said that this project will be a path-making model project for the benefit of visually handicapped, and can be replicated in each district of India. He further said that a lot needs to be done in the area of education for the blind in India - estimated to be 13 million, of which only a small percentage get education, and that too in their local languages, where establishing Indian languages Braille libraries will be of great help to the students.
Mrs. Meena Joshi, Technical Director - Modular Infotech said that content creation for the Braille Libraries will be the focal activity after the libraries are created, and appealed that All publishers of Indian languages books, and Balbharati, have now an opportunity to make their books available to the blind, in a big way, and help open the gates of knowledge to them and make a significant contribution. This will rapidly increase the literacy rate of blind persons and make different books useful for secondary, higher and professional education easily available to them. This will be a great service to the society
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For further information contact : Shashank Tilak – 94204 83405 - Rotary Club Pune Westend / Mr Raghunandan Joshi - 93701 31502 - Modular Infotech
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