Odia primer Barnabodha by Madhusudan Rao in a new look. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, April 1: The district administration will release Odia primer Barnabodha in Braille shortly.

With this, visually challenged children will finally be able to read the book of alphabets more than a century after it was first published in 1895.

“The project undertaken as part of the Sarva Shiksha Abhijan is intended to make it easier for visually challenged children to read the book of alphabets and words, which is the basic text book for elementary education in Odia,” Cuttack collector Girish S.N. told The Telegraph.

Braille is a series of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or whose eyesight is not sufficient for reading printed material.

“The Braille version of the books is in an advanced stage of production. The first copy will be released on April 28,” the Cuttack collector said.

“Barnabodha in Braille is a pioneering initiative. It assumes significance because Barnabodha has been universally used in schools, but visually challenged students have been deprived of it,” vice-president of Utkal Sahitya Samaj Bijayananda Singh said.

“We hope the project has relied on the original Barnabodha, which was written by Madhusudan Rao in 1895,” Singh said.

He added that after the first edition was published in 1895, a London-based publishing house reprinted it. But the book had remained out of print since 1960 till a new edition was published in February this year.

“To meet the demand, several imitations of the original book, such as Chhabila Madhu Barnabodha, Madhu Barnabodha, Sahaja Barnabodha, were published during the years the original book was out of print,” Singh said.

Sarva Shiksha Abhijan district project co-ordinator Bijoy Kumar Rath said: “The Braille version of the original Barnabodha is being printed at the Braille Press in Berhampur. It will be ready within 15 days for official release on April 28, the birth anniversary of Utkal Gaurav Madhusudan Das.”

The books will be distributed among 180 visually challenged students in Cuttack district. Besides, two copies will be provided to each of the 52 special schools for the visually challenged in the state.