BanglaLekha-Isolated: A Comprehensive Bangla Handwritten Character Dataset

Abstract: Bangla handwriting recognition is becoming a very important issue nowadays. It is potentially a very important task specially for Bangla speaking population of Bangladesh and West Bengal. By keeping that in our mind we are introducing a comprehensive Bangla handwritten character dataset named BanglaLekha-Isolated. This dataset contains Bangla handwritten numerals, basic characters and compound characters. This dataset was collected from multiple geographical location within Bangladesh and includes sample collected from a variety of aged groups. This dataset can also be used for other classification problems i.e: gender, age, district. This is the largest dataset on Bangla handwritten characters yet.