The High Court of Karnataka on Friday directed the State government to ensure that textbooks in Braille format are supplied within 15 days for all eligible visually-challenged persons studying in schools.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum issued the direction on a PIL petition filed by the National Federation of the Blind, Karnataka.
Earlier, it was pointed out on behalf of the petitioner that the government takes longer time to supply textbooks in Braille and many years, such textbooks are supplied to visually challenged during the second half of the academic year.
Meanwhile, the government told the Bench that so far 107 titles, 63 English medium textbooks and 44 Kannada medium textbooks have been uploaded to the website in EPUB-3 format to enable easy conversion of these textbooks contents to Braille.
The petitioner had sought direction to the government to ensure that all children with visual disabilities in Karnataka have access to free textbooks, reference books and other educational material in Braille, and to review online content uploaded on government websites are available in formats accessible to visually-challenged persons.
