Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed announced Sunday that her government would introduce sign language at state level for the welfare of the physically challenged people, dpa reported.
Hasina said this mode of communication would initially be used by the state-run television news and certain other programmes. It would gradually be adopted by the other media outlets, she said.
The premier made the announcement at the inauguration of a month- long book fair commemorating Bangladesh's language movement heroes who fought for the use of mother tongue in 1952.
Statistics from the Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), a collation of non-governmental organizations working for the handicapped, there are as many as 80 million people with disabilities in Bangladesh.
The organizations have long been asking the government to introduce the sign language for the disable people to ensure their participation in development.
"The formal announcement to adopt the sign language will help open the door for higher education for the people with disabilities," the CDD chief AHM Noman Khan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"We want an official announcement to mark the day as Sign Language Day parallel to International Mother Language Day on February 21," he added.