THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A thousand visually-challenged beneficiaries from different parts of the state would receive smartphones with special accessibility applications as part of Kerala State Handicapped Persons’ Welfare Corporation (KSHPW) Kazhcha project at a function on Wednesday. Health Minister K K Shailaja will open the event.
The smartphones are equipped with a host of applications including eSpeak – an open-source speech synthesiser app and can be operated in different languages, including Malayalam, English, Hindi and Tamil.
The phone also has applications for navigation, currency identification and other features. According to KSHPW managing director Moideen Kutty K, the applications were installed after consultations with visually challenged users, experts from IT Mission and others.
The Kerala Federation of the Blind (KFB) that is providing technical support for the project would engage around 65 volunteers as master trainers to beneficiaries on using the phone.
Announced in the initial months of 2019, procedural delays in finalising the purchase and Lok Sabha polls had delayed the Kazhcha project.
Most of the project beneficiaries are from Thiruvananthapuram followed by Kannur, Malappuram and Kasaragod.