Govt. declares equipment required by the visually impaired non-essential!
People with visual impairments are facing grave difficulties due to the 100 percent increase in the price of all of their support equipment, the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Federation of the Visually Handicapped Prasanna Wickramasinghe said.
Speaking at a press conference held in Kandy yesterday (25), he said the people with visual impairments are going through many difficulties economically, socially, politically, educationally and psychologically.He said that the price of a simple technology device used by visually impaired children to acquire basic literacy knowledge used to be Rs.3,000 but the price has gone up to Rs.300,000 at present.
Mr.Wickramasinghe said that the price of all the equipment starting from the white cane used by the visually impaired people has increased exponentially.He said that this unfortunate situation has arisen due to the increase in the value of the US Dollar as well as the designation by the government of the equipment required for the visually impaired people as non-essential items.