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Good practice Imported

Sugamya Pustakalaya: India's National Accessible Digital Library for Print-Disabled Readers

India · New Delhi · See the India profile · See the New Delhi profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 23% 92/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Government-backed Indian digital library giving people with print disabilities free access to accessible-format books. Launched 2016 with 200,000+ titles; by its third year it had 27,820 registered users, 74 partner libraries and 31,000+ downloads.

27,820
Registered users (2019)
74
Partner libraries (2019)
31,000+
Downloads logged (by 2019)
Sugamya Pustakalaya: India's National Accessible Digital Library for Print-Disabled Readers

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), DAISY Forum of India & TCS Access
Period
2016-present
Keywords
accessibility, print disability, digital library, assistive technology, education, government

Context

Sugamya Pustakalaya ('Accessible Library') was launched 24 August 2016 by India's Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under the Accessible India Campaign, with the DAISY Forum of India, TCS Access and Saksham Trust, aggregating accessible-format books for users with print disabilities.

Results

At launch the library held more than 200,000 titles. A three-year review published by G3ict in 2019 found the platform had grown to 27,820 registered users served by 74 partner libraries, with 15,700+ locally contributed titles, 29,000 titles from the ABC Global Book Service, 400,000+ titles searchable via Bookshare, and more than 31,000 downloads logged.

Conclusions

These are the most recent independently reported figures Evidoria could verify; DEPwD's current site confirms the service remains active but does not publish updated usage statistics, so more recent reach cannot be independently confirmed.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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