JNMIH site visit - as documented by Biju Barboruah - Asha Nalbari - Assam. I accompanied with Sheetal Sarmah visited Sikkim from 2nd dec to 5th Dec 2002. We left Guwahati on 1st dec by Awadha Assam leaving Guwahati at 8:30pm. From New jalpaiguri to Boomtar Namchi (Sikkim), we traveled by Jeep - a shared taxi. The teachers of the jawaharlal Nehru memorial Institute of Handicapped received us. We stayed in the Govt. I.B Namchi. We discussed with the teachers and met the students. We were impressed by their work. Their efforts are genuine and the blind students deserve all help. The activity is run by JNMIH and National Association for the Blind, Sikkim branch. National Association collects funds for the blind. The NAB has been functioning from 1995, as unregistered body. They have got it registered on 4-9-2002, registration No. 1289 Vol No.1 photocopy of registration certificate is enclosed. JNMIH is also registered by Land Revenue Department. Copy of registration certificate is enclosed. The above registrations are special for Sikkim. However state Govt. of Sikkim registers them. We have collected audit reports for the year ending 2000 and 2001. These are of NAVB. The names do not tally with registration certificate and the name of the organization of audit report. Bank passport is in favor of NAB, Namchi south. Both the organizations are formed and run by high up Govt. officers (secretary and commissioners Directors of Sikkim Govt.) . But they do not have time to go into the details. The funds for the activity are managed from contributions from Govt. Officers and Govt. grants. The institution is finding difficulty in collecting sufficient funds. They also try to earn money by making and selling candle, Plastic basket, greeting cards. Their account keeping needs improvement, which may be possible when they receive money to run this, purposed. They have to purchase their requirements of Braille paper from Siliguri, which is more, than 100 km. Hilly Track. ANd for quality paper they have to purchase from Dehradun. They do not have sufficient books and teacher for mathematics. They need qualified instructor for Brail Computer. They possess 2 Computers and 4 Printers (Brail). The teachers are not satisfied due to low salary. This is around 4-5 thousand. In short they need and deserve help and guidance. The next day on 4th Dec. we went to gangtok to meet some more members whom we could not meet in Namchi. There we met the following persons: SI No. Name of Person Designation Relation with Organization 1. Jayshree Pradhan Food Secretary, Sikkim Govt. Secretary, NAB, Sikkim 2. Gita Sharma Retired Principal Member 3. Rajiv Rai Treasurer/Accountant, NAB Everybody was very cooperative. They gave us all the information we needed. There was an open-minded discussion. We suggested and they also agreed that a whole time worker is needed for improvement in functioning of the organization. We had some extra curricular activity of songs by the students. I also joined and enthused them with a song, "Himmat mat haro". Some of the persons knew Assamese as they had studied in Guwahati University. So the language was no matter to discuss matters. We left Sikkim in the afternoon of 4th for New Jalpaiguri and reached Guwahati on 6th evening. Biju Asha Nalbari, Assam