Gauhati University will set up a special centre to train hearing and visually impaired students of the state in computer skills.

The university has signed an MoU with the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd recently. NTPC will provide necessary infrastructure to the centre.

It will be run by the department of disabilities studies of the university.

Kishore Mohan Bhattacharya, who is heading the department, said the department had already received most of the necessary equipment like computers to start the centre.

“We have got most of the equipment to set up the centre which will be opened shortly, hopefully next month,” Bhattacharya said.

In its first batch, the centre will train up 10 students. The disabilities department is situated at the arts building of the university.

Gauhati University is the fourth university in the country which has taken an initiative for setting up a disabilities studies department — a new area in the field of education, communication and empowerment for and about the differently-abled persons.

The main aim of the department is to bridge the gulf between the abled and the disabled persons by accepting disability as a condition and not a disease.

At present, the department offers a six-month post-graduate certificate course in disabilities studies.

Some of the aims of setting up the department are to serve as a resource centre for rehabilitation of the differently-abled persons besides develop teaching and learning materials of persons with disabilities.

The department also has a plan to conduct research in this field.

Bhattacharya said a computer course would help the differently-abled students to find a job and relieve them from an inferiority complex. “There are schools in the state which offer theory classes for the differently abled students, but there is no such course to give computer training for them,” he said.