Presentation by Dipendra Manocha.

1. Introducing
SUGAMYA PUSTAKALAYA
Dipendra Manocha
President, DAISY Forum of India

2. CHALLENGES
• 53 lakhs Visually Impaired (Census 2011)
• 1.2 crore Print Disabled
Visually impaired + Learning disabilities + Physical disabilities that impact reading of normal print
book
• Only 50,000 reached
By all government and non-government libraries and accessible book services and struggling just
to provide basic text books to school students
• <1% books available in accessible formats
Less than 1 % of published materials in India ever get converted in format that persons with print
disabilities could read themselves)
• TTS available for few languages only
Good quality text to speech is available only for English, Hindi, Tamil and kannada languages on
Windows computers. On Android it is available for Hindi and Bengali languages only.
• OCR available only for Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Kannada
(software to scan books)

3. DAISY FORUM OF INDIA
• Network of stakeholders
• Mission: End book famine for persons who cannot read regular print
• Government organisations, not for profit organisations, educational
institutions, public libraries and Disabled People’s organisations are
decision makers and form the national vision and mission of the DFI
• Technology education institutions, research institutions are
development partners
• International organisations, CSR wings of corporations and publishers
join as supporters to implement vision and mission of the DFI by
supporting or developing products and services.

4. COMPONENTS OF HOLISTIC SOLUTION
• KIT: Assistive technology and reading equipment required to read
accessible format books
• CARRIER: Distribution system and infrastructure that can reach out to
persons with print disabilities
• CONTENT: Production of accessible format books
IN SUPPORT WE NEED
• Training to end users, VI organisations, libraries and publishers
• Enabling laws and policies
• Solutions to fill technology gaps

5. GOALS FOR 3 YEARS
• Ten lakh persons with print disabilities should be able to get or retrieve
books of their own choice in their language and read them with eyes, ears
and fingers in all states and union territories of India
• All text books of all classes in all Indian Languages of school will be
available in accessible e-text, audio and readable in braille on first day of
new batch
• Three books for every paper of university syllabus will be available in
accessible e-text format from all major publishers.
• Top 1000 Indian best seller inclusive of Indian Language books will be
available in accessible format
• Top 100 newspapers or periodicals are available in accessible and easy to
read format even for senior citizens

6. SUGAMYA PUSTAKALAYA
CONTENT DELIVERY
• Directly connected to the Kit in the hands of the user that includes
computer, tablet, smart phone, DAISY player, braille display and braille
printer
• Support multi-mode delivery to address diversity
• Capability to accommodate intermediaries such as public libraries,
university or school libraries, ICT service centres for last mile
connectivity with end users

7. SUGAMYA PUSTAKALAYA CONTENT
COLLECTION AND CONVERSION
• Collection of all books that are available today in accessible formats
• Connectivity with other national and International resources for
accessible books with legal compliances and copy protections and
safeguards for digital content.
• Capability to receive content feeds from publishers and deliver the
same to users in accessible format of their choice.

8. PARTNERS
• Department of empowerment of Persons with Disabilities,
Government of India
• 129 stake holder organisations from all over India registered as
members of the DAISY Forum of India
• Bookshare, the largest international online database of accessible
digital books
• Powered by TCS Access∞
www.daisyindia.org
www.sugamyapustakalaya.in