Making maps available for the blind is
not easy and the world’s first fully mass-reproduced atlas for the blind
has been made in India. Using maps comes so very naturally to the
sighted but for the millions of blind people of the world, maps were
like a forbidden fruit.
To the sighted, looking up the location
of the nearest coffee shop or the metro station is easy with maps now
being an integral part of smartphones.
For the blind, maps were mostly
inaccessible but now that is changing for the 28 million
visually-handicapped people in India with the Department of Science and
Technology having released an atlas tailor-made for the blind.
For the first time, blind people can get a
feel of what India looks like. To the sighted, the map of India is no
surprise but to a person who can’t see, a map was totally inaccessible.
The solution was to make a map that could
be felt rather than be seen. In most blind people the tactile sensation
is accentuated to compensate for the loss of sight.
The National Atlas and Thematic Mapping
Organisation (NATMO) of Kolkata after years of effort made this unique
atlas. Here the map outlines are raised and embossed on paper using silk
screen printing so that the blind can feel them and it is called a
braille atlas.
According to Prithvish Nag, former
Surveyor General of India and currently Vice Chancellor of the Mahatma
Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi, “This is the first full atlas for the
blind in the world.”
Speaking of other global initiatives, he
says most other efforts in the world have been to make
individual-tactile maps but to make a full atlas which can be mass
produced, this Indian effort that started under his leadership, is
really one-of-its-kind in the world.
On January 3, at the Indian Science
Congress held here, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented the director
of NATMO, Tapti Banerjee with the ‘National Award for Science and
Technology Intervention in Empowering the Physically Challenged’ in
recognition of this achievement.
Speaking to some 11,000 scientists here,
Modi said, “On the lines of Corporate Social Responsibility, the concept
of Scientific Social Responsibility needs to be inculcated to connect
our leading institutions to all stakeholders, including schools and
colleges. We must create an environment for sharing of ideas and
resources.”
This braille atlas is one such activity
which will help the Devyang, as the Prime Minister renamed the
handicapped people some time back.
According to estimates by the Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment, in 2015 there were over 16 million
blind and 28 million visually-impaired people in India and now for the
first time they can also ‘visualise’ maps. For people who have partial
vision NATMO makes maps with accentuated colours so they can see the
maps despite their low vision.
According to the World Health
Organisation, 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired
worldwide, of which 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision and
sadly about 90 per cent of the world’s visually impaired live in
low-income settings.
India is home to the largest number of
blind people in the world and it is an unfortunate situation since
according to experts about three quarters of these are cases of
avoidable blindness.
Making an atlas for the blind was very
challenging, says Banerjee since the map itself has to be uncluttered as
the blind feel the maps with their fingers. In addition all the names
and meta data of the maps had to be accommodated in braille.
The 84-page black-and-white atlas is made on oversized A-3 size paper so that all the information could be easily accommodated.
According to Banerjee the work on this
project started way back in 1997 and her team members had to first
master braille to make the atlas. She laments the work took so long
simply because the government cut the staff strength of NATMO from a
high of 500 to just 150. With an annual budget of Rs 6 crore NATMO has
made as many as 2000 different normal maps available on paper.
The atlas has been prepared not only in
English but also in Bengali, Gujarati and Telugu, there are 20 different
basic maps that range from the political map of India, to the physical
map of India to various soil types found in India.
NATMO has printed some 500 copies of the
braille atlas which cost them about Rs 1000 each and these are being
distributed free to all the blind schools of India.
The atlas made by NATMO is rather bulky
since high quality glazed paper has been used and then using a special
printing technique the raised embossing has been achieved, explains
Banerjee. In the upcoming edition light weight imported paper will be
used where embossing is easier to do, says Banerjee. This may make the
atlas for the blind light weight and more portable.
As NATMO embraces the digital environment
the next stage could be embed audio files in the braille atlas and
possibly make an app that speaks to the blind using the omnipresent
global positioning system or GPS signals, the hard part would be to make
smart phones get that raised tactile feel on their screens which makes
the blind feel and visualise the maps.
Recently, the Ministry of Social Justice
had remarked that the ‘visually impaired people in India are often
marginalised in terms of education opportunities, career opportunities
or social standing as compared to their sighted counterparts. Due to a
lack of access to information, they are often unable to lead fulfilling,
independent, economic and socially productive lives.’
This unique effort by NATMO at least
tries to fulfil one gap of a major social need with Indian science in
the service of the society.
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