Providing free audio books for the visually impaired: Teacher

A visually impaired English teacher has embarked on a project of converting books into audio files for benefit of the blind, and today claimed to have touched the lives of many students so far.
Sandeep Trivedi, no stranger to the challenges faced by the blind, said he started the project in 2010 and has converted several books for college and university students, and for candidates appearing in competitive exams.
"It is a challenging task for blind students to fight a competition or to go for higher studies because there are no such books in Braille. So, I started the project of converting books into audio CDs in 2010 which has benefited more than a 1,000 students so far," Trivedi, an English teacher posted in Makhupura government school in Ajmer, told PTI today.

Trivedi spends upto 3 hours a day converting books sent to him by visually impaired students into audio with the help of a female reader, and later dispatches the completed CDs to them by post, all without charging a fee.
"On an average, we dispatch 100 CDs in a month to students in different states. A 500-page book takes around 20 hours to get converted," he said, claiming it is the first such project in Rajasthan.
Trivedi expressed a desire to scale up his operations, but bemoaned the paucity of resources in pursuing the project.

"I am doing it on voluntary basis and want to take it on higher stage. A club in Ajmer has funded us, but we have limited resources," he said.

The government should set up a digital library for visually impaired students which would go a long way in helping them, he suggested.
His school's principal said the lecturer is popular among students and is respected for his work.
"The performance our teacher Sandeep is very good and students adore him. Besides teaching our school students, he voluntarily devotes his services for the welfare of blind school," the principal Vijendra Boondwal said.
The lecturer hailing from Banswara district, said parents in rural areas usually do not allow their blind children to go for higher studies due to lack of supporting infrastructure.

"Therefore it is very important for the government to support such projects so that visually impaired students get more options," he said.