West Bengal Biodiversity Board comes out with book on biodiversity in Braille

Kolkata: The West Bengal Biodiversity Board (WBBB) has come out with a book on biodiversity in Braille in order to enable the visually-challenged to access information on the wide biodiversity in the country.

The book describes the importance of biodiversity, its types, importance of conservation and the laws associated with it.

India has 70 million visually-impaired persons in the world which accounts for one-third of the visually challenged in the world. “Hence, there is a huge population which is unaware of the biodiversity the country boasts of and hence oblivious of the importance of conservation. The book will help them understand biodiversity and they will also contribute immensely to biodiversity conservation in the times to come,” said Himadri Sekhar Debnath, chairman of the West Bengal Biodiversity Board. State Environment minister Chandrima Bhattacharjee lauded WBBB for the initiative which is first-of-its-kind in India and perhaps in the world too.

The WBBB has sent copies of the Braille book to all 40 odd blind schools in the state. “We have written to the Chief Secretaries of all states along with a copy of the book and have asked them to send requisition for the book as per the requirement of their respective states. Once they share the requisition request, we will be sending more copies. We want to bridge the gap about lack of biodiversity awareness among the visually challenged,” said a senior official of the state Environment department.

The book has been printed in the Braille press of Narendrapur Ramkrishna Mission.