It seems there is no solution in sight for the problems plaguing the Government Braille Printing Press here. The future of the State’s lone Braille press is at stake with no sincere attempts being made to correct the situation.
The lone printing machine had conked out last year but it has not been repaired yet.
This affected the printing of Braille textbooks for students in the State and books had to be procured from a private press in North India by shelling out Rs. 25 lakh.
The machine, an imported one, had broken down during the beginning of last year’s academic year. This led to disruption in the printing of textbooks, and supply to over 34 schools, including four government schools, had been delayed.
Though the machine was repaired on a couple of occasions, glitches continue to hit it, making it unreliable. The Directorate for the Welfare of Disabled and Senior Citizens, under whose control the press functions, has outsourced printing of the textbooks this year to avoid inconvenience to students. The press had received the machine under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme for faster printing as the previous machine had become obsolete. When the machine was in good condition, the press, on an average, was printing over 10,000 copies of textbooks in a year. It also prints and distributes Braille books on general knowledge, music, Kannada and English grammar, and also a calendar. The press provides books to visually impaired children in primary schools free of cost, and charges one-third of the printing cost for books supplied to high school students.
The Mysuru office of the directorate sent a proposal seeking a brand new Braille printing machine costing Rs. 92 lakh last year but there has been no response from the government till date.
The State has nearly 6,000 visually-challenged children studying in the schools and about 1,000 children under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyana. Upset over continued negligence of the printing press, visually challenged students from Mysuru launched indefinite agitation seeking immediate repair of the printing machine at the press.
