A halt in printing at Mysore Braille Press

According to the recent coverage by The Hindu, Govindaraju, director of Directorate of Disabled Welfare and Senior Citizens, visited the Braille Printing Press and assured to take immediate steps to ensure the resumption of the printing of textbooks.

 

In the previous academic year, the machine had broken down and faced delayed in the amounts of textbooks to schools including government schools. This year to avoid this, the press outsourced the printing of the textbooks, under the management of the Directorate for the Welfare of Disabled and Senior Citizens.

 

Received under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme, the braille printing press produced an average of over 10, 000 copies of textbooks in a year. According to a report, it also used to print and distribute Braille books on topics like general knowledge, music, and grammar in English and Kannada.

 

For the visually impaired children, the press provides books for free and charges for only one-third of the printing for books supplied to the high school students.

 

Gangadhar, the manager at the press, stated in a report that, “We have urged to repair the machine immediately and purchased another machine from Mumbai, this time an India make.  The investment in the machine will be about Rs 26 lakhs.”

 

The State has more than 5,000 visually challenged children studying in the schools and more than 800 students are under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme.