The Calcutta Blind School was founded in the year 1894 by the late Rev. Lal Bihari Shah and has been a torchbearer for the education of the visually handicapped in India for one hundred  years.

The school which was started with one blind child in a: small cottage and nurtured by Reverned Shah is today a co-educational, residential  school  of  about  150 boys  and  girls, affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. It has been successful in attracting the active sympathy and support of the people who have given their unstinting time and labour to the building up of this institution.

One of the prime concerns of the school is to see that the students join the mainstream of life and secure gainful employment. While, therefore, the school emphasizes extra-curricular activities including music, crafts, sports, physical exercises and even enrollment of its wards as scouts and guides,  there is a well planned programme for vocational training, typewriting, light engineering and training for teachers  and  telephone  operators.

As a crowning achievement in the endeavour to equip the sightless for better job opportunities, the school has implemented a project on computer education. The computer is specially designed with a Speech Synthesizer and a software known as Computer Assistance for the Blind (CAB).

Many of the students of this school are now working in Government undertakings or in the private sector besides having set up businesses under self-employment schemes with  bank loans  arranged  by  the  school.

The Calcutta Blind School has also opened a research wing, where the main focus would be on the study of the  socio-economic conditions of the visually handicapped in the context  of their family, community and the society at large as well as on education and the preventive and curative aspects of sightlessness. The research wing has plans to also develop training modules for  adults.

The Department of Posts is privileged to issue a postage stamp commemorating  the hundred years of Calcutta Blind School, which has been rendering a yeoman service for the rehabilitation and education of the visually handicapped.

Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of India