But at the State Central Library at Cubbon Park, armed only with a Braille typewriter, M Ramesh Kumar and Srinivasulu, both visually challenged, have been toiling hard everyday from the past eight years to maintain and produce copies of Braille books. Ironically, a simple computerised Braille embosser today helps Braille prints of any text in soft copy in a matter of minutes.

This because the veritable century old State Central Library, that boasts to have the largest collection of Braille books in the state, has been hopefully waiting for funds to buy a mechanised Braille embosser for at least two years now.

What makes the situation ironic is that while the braille embosser costs anywhere in the range of Rs. 4 lakh to Rs. 12 lakh, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) owes the Public Libraries Department a whopping Rs. 370 crore that it has collected as library cess in the past five years and not deposited yet.

K S Mamata, deputy Director, in-charge, state central library said that they had sought funds from the National Mission on Libraries under a scheme where there was funding upto Rs. 3 lakh.

Mr. Ramesh Kumar said that though the state central library had the largest collection of Braille books, large swathes of knowledge in the library was still inaccessible to the visually impaired. “In the event of the library getting a Braille embosser almost the entire state central library will become accessible. If any visually challenged person places a demand for a particular book, we can scan the book and get Braille print outs in a day or two,” he said.

Scanned copies of books can be easily converted to Braille print outs only in case of English books. Kannada or any other regional language books have to be first typed out to create a soft copy to convert it into braille print outs.

“We are expecting a grant this year which will enable us to buy a Braille embosser and also buy some new Braille books,” said Satish Kumar S. Hosamani, Director, Department of Public Libraries adding that after repeated correspondence BBMP had agreed to pay the cess in instalments.