Pune, Maharashtra,  Two Braille Libraries will be launched later this month, by Government of Himachal Pradesh ( HP ), Department of Social Justice and Empowerment., 4th January being the 201 st Birth Anniversary of Louis Braille - the inventor of BRAILLE SCRIPT !

The Braille Library system for use by visually challenged persons, and having a number of novel features has been designed, made and supplied to the Government of HP, by city based companies Modular Infotech Private Limited and Automatic Control Equipments.

The total value of the project is Rs 6.27 Lacs. This project will be a path-making model project for the benefit of visually handicapped, in the State of Himachal Pradesh, and can be replicated in each district of HP, and other states of India. This project of HP Government will contribute to increase the literacy rate of visually handicapped persons and make different books useful for secondary, higher and professional education easily available to them, with cooperation of the Departments of Social Justice and Empowerment of Himachal Pradesh The library will be set up in Shimla and Surendra Nagar, Mandi

The objectives of the project are - To set up reading libraries for the visually challenged students with a view to help provide them access to maximum reading material both for academic as well as other literary reading, ensuring that the libraries are located in such a way that maximum students are benefited by the same. The Libraries use the technology of Microcomputer based Electronic Braille Readers with software for reading Indian Languages and English Braille. This technology has been developed by Modular Infotech and manufactured by ACE both Pune companies, incorporating very user-friendly features for the visually handicapped users, and an efficient storage system for Braille Books which saves upto 98 % space, and gives a virtually unlimited life for the books

Each Library contains the following equipment. - Three numbers of Microcomputer based electronic Braille Readers, from Automatic Control Equipments, Pune, one IBM compatible PC, Braille Library administrating software and Shree-Lipi Braille Software for automatic translation of books in Indian languages and English into Braille, from Modular Infotech, Pune, and Un-Interrupted Power Supply, for the equipment.

The salient features of the Braille Library System developed by Modular Infotech and ACE are that books in Hindi, and all Indian languages and English can be converted to Braille from their soft copies. After the conversion to Braille, these books are indexed and are stored in pen-drive storage devices in a compact manner. A normal 2 GB pen-drive can store upto 2000 or more books. A Library administration software specially designed for the Braille Library, allows the pen-drives to be loaded with the books and their index lists. From these, required books can be stored for reading into the BRAILLE-MITRA Reader. Thus each Reader can work independently without the need of a PC.

The sightless person can virtually get an unlimited number of books for Braille reading on BRAILLE-MITRA, if these books are available in Braille in soft form, as a computer file. BRAILLE-MITRA is silent, and has a variety of navigation features for the reader to make Braille reading a truly wonderful experience.