Sign Language Accessibility for e-Governance Services

National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility policy released by MeitY in 2013 and the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 recognize the need to eliminate the discrimination on the basis of disabilities and to facilitate equal access to electronics & ICTs.

CDAC Trivandrum in collaboration with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam are developing an accessibility interface integrating Indian Sign Language (ISL) into e-Governance services to make e-Governance accessible for deaf individuals (people with-hearing disability).

The objective of the project “Sign Language Accessibility for e-Governance Services” is to create a sign language understanding interface for accessibility to e-governance services for deaf community (people with-hearing disability) proficient in Indian sign language (ISL). The system aims at developing an AI based inclusive / assistive technology for ISL signers in access and understanding the contents in website (UMANG FAQ), by using the sign language as input. The project outcome includes corpus of Indian sign language videos of UMANG FAQ questions & answers and Chat interface with sign language recognition of UMANG FAQ questions.