In a novel initiative, the National Museum here is creating an exclusive gallery for visually-impaired visitors where they will be able to touch and feel the replicas of various artefacts with audio guides narrating their historical significance.
The gallery, a first-of-its-kind initiative in any state- run museum in the country, is likely to be thrown open within the next five months.
The museum will also have tactile paving which will lead the visually-challenged visitors to the gallery without any requirement for human assistance.
Executed under the National Museum Access Project for People with Disabilities, authorities have evolved a homegrown model for the ambitious project by engaging visually- challenged people as resource persons for the purpose.
"It is a homegrown model. The gallery is expected to be opened in another four to five months," National Museum Director General Venu Vasudevan told PTI.
According to official sources, two evaluation exercises involving visually-challenged persons have been conducted to analyse their requirements.
Different departments in the museum have also been asked to provide replicas that could be displayed in the gallery.
"The replicas would be made using fiber glass and Plaster of Paris. Every replica will have braille labels with a brief description about the historical significance of objects," museum's Assistant Curator (Education) Rige Shiba said.
Moreover, officials are also contemplating to equip the visually-challenged persons with audio guides.
"Audio guides featuring numbers in Braille would describe about the objects. Visually-challenged visitors can get information on the objects, just at the click of a button in the audio guides," an official involved in the project said.
The officials said that UNESCO is also involved in the project and is assisting the museum in choosing the objects to put on display in the gallery.
The National Museum, considered as India's premier museum, has about 10 departments including archaeology, anthropology, arms and armours and numismatics.
