For the first time, more than 50 visually challenged students studying in SSLC and above were given talking laptops in Mysuru. The laptops have in-built audio keyboards that are incorporated with special software to make them user-friendly.
After distributing the laptops to the beneficiaries, Pushpavathi Amaranath, president of the Mysuru Zilla Panchayat, said the talking laptops would be a boon for the visually challenged students to access information and pursue higher education. She said there were thousands of visually challenged students in the district and she wished that all the students would be given a talking computer each in the years to come.
Ms. Amaranath said she would discuss the issue in the next general body meeting of the Zilla Panchayat and examine whether it could be arranged to provide talking laptops to all visually challenged students from the Zilla Panchayat funds.
Srinivas, District Visually Impaired Welfare Officer (in-charge) said the laptops were provided by the Department of Disabled Welfare and that this was the first time such gadgets were distributed to visually challenged students.
He said as per the 2011 census there were over 10,000 visually challenged persons and of them more than 3,400 were students. The department would write to their higher-ups to provide them with more laptops in the coming years to provide the visually challenged students with access to information.
The cost of each laptop is Rs. 49,000, he said, adding that this year laptops had been given to beneficiaries based on the severity of visual impairment. Beneficiaries would be given training soon on how to use the talking laptops, he said.
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DAC) and Enable India have reportedly equipped the laptops with their specially developed software. The laptops will have the software to synthesise on-screen text and keyboard commands into human voice, Mr. Srinivas said.
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