A Braille version of the Constitution of India was launched at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) on Thursday.

The project took two years and the printing was done at the Ramakrishna Mission
Regional Braille Press in Narendrapur.

“We are aware of the barriers faced by our students and employees with disabilities and we are taking steps to make our infrastructure and pedagogy accessible to them. We are also making our library accessible to visually impaired students through assistive technologies,” said WBNUJS vice-chancellor Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti.

The printing process included manual data entry using Braille software keys, taking prints in Braille, and then two levels of proofreading. “We have both normal and visually impaired proofreaders who form a team to tally the printed original with the Braille version,” Arup Chatterjee, the manager of the press, explained to Metro.

The only Braille press in the east zone has also supplied ballot papers and voter slips for the recent Parliamentary elections in Bengal and Tripura, added Brahmachari Asimachaitanya of the RKM Blind Boys’ Academy, which shares its campus with the press.

“While the Constitution is in English, we can also print in Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Assamese, Manipuri and Odiya,” he added.

The Constitution has been compiled in 16 volumes. Since the Braille font size is far bigger than ordinary print, one volume can accommodate only 20-25 articles, said Chakrabarti.

It includes till the 105th amendment of 2021. “In case there are more amendments we might bring out a supplementary volume five or six years later,” the vice-chancellor said.

At present, NUJS has four visually impaired students, one of whom attended the event. There were also three students from the Narendrapur academy. Of them, Mir Mehtab Ali of Class IX read out the introduction to the Constitution, while another visually impaired recent pass-out Biswajit Sil played Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite song Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram on the violin.

“The Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. It is necessary for every law student, in fact, every citizen, to get access to basic legal literature,” said faculty member T.V.G.N.S. Sudhakar, who is visually challenged and teaches international law at NUJS.

In the first edition, five copies have been printed. “Of these, we will hand over a copy each to the Supreme Court, the high court and the National Library,” said Chakrabarti.