Taken from Times of India:
AHMEDABAD: For blind people, Union Budget 2014-15 presented on Thursday was historic - for the first time, the word 'Braille' was given the importance of being mentioned in a central Budget. The role of a teacher from Gujarat, Geeta Vaghela, who wrote the Braille version of Narendra Modi's book on education, 'Kelve te Kelavanikar', may be behind this sudden impetus given to Braille in the central Budget. The Budget made the provision for 15 Braille presses
and Braille-embossed currency. Vaghela had gifted the Braille edition of the book to Modi in 2007, when he was the chief minister.
Director of Blind People's Association, Bhushan Punani - an IIM graduate who chose the social sector over the corporate sector - says Vaghela's gift sparked Modi's interest in Braille, a tactile writing system used by blind people.
"I got a call from the CMO and it was communicated by CM Modi that Vaghela's efforts should not go waste," says Punani. Vaghela teaches in Guzariya Primary
School in Mansa, Gandhinagar. Modi's interest in Braille continued to be sustained and in 2012, his government in Gujarat offered another gift to blind children of the state - 'Bal Srushti' (The World of Children) - a monthly magazine for school children. That too was released in Braille by Modi. The magazine is read by 9,000 children enrolled in blind schools.
According to Census 2011, Gujarat has 3 lakh people with sight problems of whom roughly 60,000 are children; 12,000 of them go to school. India has 23 lakh people with visual impairments, 6 lakh of whom are children. "These are small numbers but allocations in the Union budget for Braille presses and the Institute of Universal Design for aids and devices along with currency, give a boost to the integration of blind people in the mainstream," says Punani.
Source: Times of India.
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