Blind students demonstrate at Dispur Last Gate on Monday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Sept. 20: Hundreds of blind students marched to Dispur today decrying the government?s ?apathy? towards them.

Shouting slogans like ?shoot us dead if you can?t fulfil our minimum needs?, the members of the All Assam Blind Students? Union threatened an indefinite hungerstrike from tomorrow unless the government provided facilities for their education.

?The government has turned a blind eye towards us, forcing us to take to the streets,? president of the union Gautamananda Das said.

The procession began from the Government Blind School at Pilingkata near Basistha and made its way through the Bhabendra Nath Saikia road to reach Dispur. The students ended their march and submitted a charter of demands to chief minister Tarun Gogoi through an official after security personnel stopped them from gatecrashing into Janata Bhavan.

The demands include ?provincialisation? of the city?s sole blind school and making the Braille Press fully functional.

?The indifferent attitude of the authorities is well reflected from the fact that the only blind school in city, which was set up in 1976, is yet to be provincialised,? Das said. At present, there are about 70 students and 25 staff members in the school.

Das pointed out that the Braille press in the city served the entire region.

?Though the construction of the press began way back in 1985, it was inaugurated by social welfare minister Gautam Roy only on June 30 this year. The press has not published a single book in Assamese, as a result of which many students have had to drop out after matriculation,? he added.

The press, set up to print reading material, class notes, questions papers and training material for the blind students, does not have any permanent employee and is run by temporary staff.

The transcription of text to Braille and printing of Braille material on indigenously-developed Braille embosser was supposed to be done in the press.

Programme officer of the social welfare department . Buragohain said seven English books had been printed at the press, which would shortly begin printing books in Assamese.

?The government has accorded top priority to the welfare of blind and the recruitment of permanent employees for the press is under way,? she said.

The blind students also demanded filling up of the vacancies in government departments under the mandatory three per cent reservation for the disabled.

?There has been no attempt to fill up the vacancies for the disabled in different government departments of the state since 1981,? a protester alleged.

The Assam Association of the Deaf has also launched an agitation in protest against the non-fulfilment of its long-pending demands.