As a part of its social commitment to make the Railways more friendly towards specially abled passengers, Indian Railways has decided to provide Braille stickers in coaches to facilitate visually impaired passengers.

Presently coaches are provided with signage, instructions and seat numbers . which are mostly in the form of vinyl stickers/metallic plates and have no Braille characters and cannot be read by visually impaired passengers. Now it is planned to use stickers with metallic base with printed characters embedded into it.

Integral Coach Factory (ICF), a production unit of the Indian Railways, has developed the specification for integrated Braille signages in coaches in consultations with blind associations and input received from Research Design & Standards Organisation (RDSO).

The first prototype coach is expected to be turned out from ICF in October 2013 for feedback. This is expected to be a major step for facilitation of visually impaired passengers during journey in trains.

Braille printing will be superimposed on these stickers and same can be used by both a person with normal vision and visually impaired person. With embedded picture/characters, there would not be any defacing even on repeated contacts/rubbing. Flexible metal foil base and adhesive backing on these stickers make them easy to install on flat as well as on curved surfaces of the coach, an official press release added.