THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The deserted ground floor of the Kerala Federation of the Blind (KFB) at Kunnukuzhi bears testimony to the bad patch the institute has been going through in the recent times. Until a year ago the place was buzzing with activities as visually-challenged people visit the office to learn using computers, internet banking and ride-hailing apps with the help of the talking software. It was also a place frequented by the visually-challenged to check lottery results or for filling PSC application forms.
Today the visually-challenged persons are left with no place to learn crucial skills in their lives thanks to the decision by the Social Justice Department to end financial support for ‘Insight’, a project executed by the KFB that operated on the ground floor of the two-storey complex.
The six trainers in the institute had continued working there for almost two years without salary before they quit to eke out a living.
The department alleged KFB of misappropriating funds for running Insight. But KFB has denied the allegations. “There were inspections, including those from Gulati Institute of Finance, after Special Secretary of the department made the allegations. But they could not find anything wrong,” said former coordinator of Insight James Mathew.
James has been with Insight since its inception in 2007. He has recruited talents from outside to develop proprietary software and tools such as substitute for Taylor Frame for doing mathematics. As the funds dried up all of them have left. He is now working as a product manager with a Maharashtra-based software company.
Representatives of KFB met Minister for Health, Social Justice and Woman and Child Development K K Shailaja in July to discuss the feasibility of restarting the project. But things have not moved further. “The government should not turn a blind eye to the plight of visually-challenged instead of creating unnecessary hurdles in their lives,” said KFB executive director R Sasidharan Pillai.
KFB is facing fresh challenges after the department sought return of rent for running the project since 2013. It’s contention is that KFB should not have included rent component in project cost when it was carried out on its own premises. “The rent is part of the government order since 2013. For five years they could not find anything wrong,” said James.
Insight has stopped taking residential training programme since February. It used to give `200 as stipend for a student every day for the one-and-a-half month’s training. Insight spends `1.25 lakh on an average per batch. It has been training around 250 students every year on an average since 2013 when the project was shifted from Kerala IT Mission to Social Justice Department and KFB became the implementation agency.
People who have benefitted from Insight including those who are born with the disability and those who became visually-challenged due to disease or accident at a later stage, recounted their association with Insight. Youngsters who got job in IT companies and have gone abroad have even put up a YouTube video on Insight.
“There are hundreds of people who come to Insight for simple things from knowing lottery results to preparing for PSC tests. I myself regained confidence in life after the training,” said Prashant Kumar Mani who lost eyesight in a bike accident. Insight has three centres - Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. It played an active role in training visually-challenged in digital banking after demonetisation.
Leaving a void
Insight spends H1.25 lakh on an average per batch. It has been training around 250 students every year since 2013 when the project was shifted from IT Mission to Social Justice Department