Aniruddha's Bank for the Blind (ABB) is an organization dedicated to the service of the

visually challenged Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

. Functioning like a 'bank', it stores knowledge in the form of audio CDs that record the academic syllabus of educational and technical institutions and makes these CD's available free of cost to visually challenged students.

History

It is a joint activity/project of the `Shree Aniruddha Upasana Foundation’, ‘Aniruddha Samarpan Pathak’ and ‘Shree Aniruddha Aadesh Pathak’, committed towards offering service to the visually challenged. These entity are non-profit Organizations incorporated in Mumbai, India. This project was initiated in July 2004 under the guidance of Dr. Aniruddha Dhairyadhar Joshi, a successful consulting Rheumatologist, M.D., the Project began work in Mumbai,

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

, India and then over the last 8 years, has spread its service network to 19 Indian states providing recorded audio material in 11 Indian languages. It has even been extending its hand of support to beneficiaries in Pakistan,(Springfield School Karachi). It initially began with cassettes and over a period of time, has switched to CDs keeping in mind the durability, the better sound quality and their compactness that enables easy storage.

Organization and Work Structure

The team is made of a core active committee and a pool of volunteers (Sevabhavi Karyakartas) who hail from various regions of India. Well-versed in the Indian languages, these volunteers record the required material which is edited meticulously to maintain the quality matter & the sound and organized in such a way that the visually challenged may easily locate the desired page if need be. The recording assignments accepted on receiving written requests from the concerned educational institutions.e.g. Samagra Jeevan Vikas Samsthe, Karnataka The recording of the book is performed only after due clearance from publishing house of that respective book. The CDs are then packed and dispatched to beneficiaries.

States Covered

West Zone : Goa, Gujarat,

, Rajasthan East Zone : West Bengal North Zone : Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab South Zone : Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu Central Zone : Bihar,

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh

Languages Covered

Material for students covered in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, Gujarati, English, Sanskrit, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada,

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

, Bengali,

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

languages.

Beneficiaries

Cds are provided to # Students of schools # Colleges # Universities (post graduate) # Vocational courses # Banking # Public service examination etc.

Overall statistics

To date, 11,063 CDs & 30, 721 cassettes have reached 513 beneficiaries (128 individuals & 385 institutions)

References

{{reflist Blindness organisations in India