Non Government Initiatives

Increasing access to facilities

Doctors, members of service organizations and music lovers had gathered at Vani Mahal to do their bit for the visually impaired.

The Chennai Vision Charitable Trust, Rajan Eye Care Hospital, and Dasanjali presented “Two Eyes–One Music, a Kaleidoscope of Indian Music's in aid of the Blind Free India Project. Speaking at the event, U.S. Consul–General in Chennai David T. Hopper said much remained to be done in the area of health and eye care, particularly in rural areas. He commended Rajan Eye Care Hospital for its initiative.

Medical director of Rajan Eye Care Hospital Mohan Rajan said the first phase of the project sought to cover 10 million people. India was among the countries with the largest population of visually impaired persons. “However, 80 to 90 per cent of this blindness is curable or reversible,” he said. Awareness and standardization of healthcare were vital, he added.

The hospital also took tertiary eye care to the rural population through its vans equipped with sophisticated lasers. “We hope to reach out to more people through this,” he said. Senior general physician K.S. Krishnagopal, who was the guest of honor on the occasion, said that not all sections of society had access to good healthcare therefore, such initiatives went a long way in ensuring that those living in rural areas had access to facilities that their urban counterparts enjoyed. He lauded’ Dr. Mohan Rajan's team for its effort.

Wife of the Consul–General, Susan Hopper, and associate medical director of Rajan Eye Care Hospital Dr. Sujatha Mohan were also present. A music program showcasing different styles of Indian music followed.

Source: Concert in aid of the visually impaired, The Hindu, Chennai, 27 November 2007

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The talking library

Libraries are silent zones and it is no different at Farook College near Kerala. But sometimes in its quiet ambience you may hear a voice reading aloud in English. It is the Digital Talking Book Library. The college has installed this facility at the library for the benefit of visually challenged students and aptly named it Insight.

Insight helps 32 blind students at the college to delve into the vast world of books without the help of Braille. The library has four computers to help such students. The facility consists of a few computers, a scanner and a set of speakers and also headphones. Through voice prompts it also helps the user operate the computer.

“Visually challenged students find it very useful. They spend hours at these machines reading books and periodicals,” said M Ayub, the librarian. “Its operation is simple. You have to just scan the pages you want to read. The computer will convert it into sound bytes. The students have learned to operate the system and they are doing it without help from others,” he added. The gadget looks ordinary, but the software may baffle you.

“We are using the software Jaws and Kurzweil to operate these systems,” says Habeeb C., a guest lecturer and a former student of the college, as he operates the system with astonishing ease. He is visually challenged. He has played a key role in encouraging the authorities to install the facility.

Source: A talking library, Mid Day (Mon–Sat), New Delhi, 29 November 2007.

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Not CSR anymore

Pasha Bhai happens to be one of the most popular salespersons for Pepsico in Chennai and is hugely popular with his clients. Pasha Bhai cannot hear or talk. He is part of Pepsico's new initiative in hiring disabled persons in their sales division.

After employing 150 persons with different kinds of disabilities in seven plants, Pepsico has selected 50 disabled persons for sales. Pasha Bhai, for instance, does not need to talk. He shows a book to the shopkeeper who enters his order in the book; cleans the cooling equipment and moves on.

In their plants, Pepsico found that people who cannot hear make great bottle examiners as they are able to concentrate better and detect any foreign body in the bottle more easily. “We hired an agency to do job mapping, which is to match a particular kind of ability to the job at hand. This way we identified the areas in which we could hire specially enabled people and worked to make our plants totally accessible to them,” explained Pawan Bhatia, executive director HR in Pepsico. If it was charity earlier; today it is sound business. Hiring people with disabilities (PWDs) is slowly gaining acceptance in the corporate sector. Pepsico, for instance, is planning to replicate their experience in hiring PWDs across all 15 plants in India. Today, 15% of the 1,000 employees in seven of their plants are PWDs. They are also seeking new areas where these people can be employed, such as distributorship. The company has also been invited by the labour ministry of Gujarat to share its experience with other companies like Reliance and Arvind Mills.

Similarly, the ITC hotel, The Windsor, in Bangalore has 18 ‘people with special abilities’out of a total staff strength of 500, amounting to 3.6%. Earlier, they had 10 such employees and within the last year; they not only hired eight more, but also moved some of them to the guest contact area so that the visibility of such people would raise awareness among visitors too. The Windsor is also working closely with The Leela Palace and Royal Orchid Hotels to help them build their system to absorb disabled people.

“The key is to use their ability for the appropriate job. Once that has been done, they are impressive in their commitment, attendance and eagerness to learn. In fact, their attitude has rubbed off positively on the other employees. We are so happy with them that we will be replicating this in our other hotels across the chain,” says Anand Rao, the general manager of the hotel. The move has also won the hotel much appreciation from their guests.

Infosys BPO Ltd. Goes a step further introducing a line in their job advertisements: “Persons with disability are encouraged to apply.” Faced with attrition level climbing from 18–20% towards 30% in 2005, Infosys thought of PWDs as a new talent pool to be explored. Starting with 28 PWDs, today they employ 165 of them and are looking to more than double that number. “We are very happy with the results. Hiring PWDs does mean more investment in terms of making their work space more accessible, arranging transportation for them and training and sensitizing the rest of the staff. But it has been absolutely worth it. Companies shy away from hiring PWDs because of this investment. They will realise what a worthwhile investment it is only when they start hiring,” says Amitabh Choudhary, chief executive of Infosys BPO.

Enable India, a Bangalore–based NGO that works to empower PWDs, has over the years placed hundreds of PWDs, starting from their first client Shell and Café Coffee Day, to a client list that now includes IBM, Infosys, the Tats Group, Reuters, Satyam, the ITC group and many companies in the garment sector. “We look for growing sector like garments, retail and IT as they always need people. And we look to build long–term relationships so that we can continue to place people in these companies. We have placed people in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Mangalore, instead of being restricted to any one place so that these people become more visible everywhere,” explains Shanti Raghavan of Enable India.

These little bits of good news apart, hiring of PWDs in the corporate sector continues to be abysmally low about 0.28% of the workforce–even though attitudes are changing. The Disability Act 1995 stated that the private sector would voluntarily ensure that at least 5% of their workforce comprised PWDs. Sujit Gupta, chairperson of the Confederation of Indian Industries' (CII) core group on disability, says: “Yet, even today the 6,000 CII members who employ over 50 lakh people would hardly have many PWDs in their employment,” Gupta feels the barriers are mindsets and ignorance, especially at the CEO level and among the HR managers. He adds: “The experience of employing PWDs has been positive–the dedication, loyalty and hence lesser attrition and high productivity. I am at a complete loss as to why there is resistance to employing PWDs.”

Ficci's Socio–economic Development Foundation president P M Sinha says, “We have not even scratched the surface. Ficci is now going to HR managers and telling them who can be hired and getting them on board to accept that these are perfectly good workers at any level,”says Sinha.

Most of the employment seems to be happening at the lower levels and not the managerial or executive level. Raghavan points out that placing people at higher level also means finding people with adequate qualifications. “Most PWDs go in for just a BA. How many of them have access to higher education?" she says. She is optimistic that with more PWDs going in for the right kind of education, things will begin to look up for them. For the moment, getting any kind of employment is the first step towards claiming their rightful share in the country's growing economy.

Source: Hiring for special skills, The Times of India, New Delhi, 2 December 2007.

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XIth Plan to encompass the demands stated

Some of the key concerns of the disabled that had reportedly been ignored in the 11th Plan document were included before the plan was submitted for Cabinet approval.

Earlier, advocacy groups had condemned the way the disabled had been given short shrift in the document put together by the Planning Commission, which had dismissed the issues related to the disabled in just five paragraphs. After protests and dharnas out-side the Planning Commission, efforts have been made to include all the important concerns of in the plan. One of the strongest demands had been for disability issues to be taken out of the exclusive charge of the ministry of social justice and empowerment as these issues cut across ministries. This demand has reportedly been heeded. Planning Commission member Bhalchandra Mungekar who looks after disability issues in the commission confirmed that appropriate changes had been made to ensure that the most pressing concerns were addressed. “I have kept my promise that all these concerns would be addressed in letter and spirit in the 11th Plan. This is not charity but a matter of right for the disability sector that has been neglected for too long,” said Mungekar.

Now, under the 11th plan clear–cut responsibilities will be delineated for each ministry and department, and budget allocation will be made by each ministry to carry out programmes that ensure that the Disability Act, 1995, is implemented. Monitoring mechanisms to track the implementation in the various ministries and departments are expected to be set up.

The plan is also said to envisage a separate department for disability within the Ministry of social justice and empowerment.

Source: Plan panel heeds concerns of disabled, The time of India, New Delhi, 29 November 2007.

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IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Centre

IBM India launched the first ever Human Ability and Accessibility Centre in the country that aims to make technology and information easily accessible to people with visual, cognitive, hearing, and motor disabilities in India.

These accessible technologies can unleash the value of the untapped talent pool of differently–able people and contribute enormously to raising individual's overall quality of life. Located at India Research Lab in New Delhi, IBM India Human Ability and Accessibility Centre would cater to the diverse requirement of accessibility stakeholders in India including, government bodies, corporates, academic institutions, researchers and NGOs.

It will provide technology for empowering differently abled people: including people facing educational and economic challenges. Moreover, technologies to other companies working on solving the industry–wide problem of making educational media and information accessible to a greater number of people would also be provided.

Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India & South Asia said, “India faces a growing need for inclusive development that fundamentally depends on addressing social, economic and physical disadvantages and create opportunities for every individual to realize the potential of their abilities. Globally and in India, IBM champions accessibility needs by brining technologies and innovations that empower the differently–abled and socially disadvantaged through initiatives such as the Human Ability and Accessibility Centre”.

Accessibility means enabling IT hardware, software and services to be used by more people, either directly or in combination with assistive technology products. Technologies such as speech recognition, wireless communication and text–to–speech synthesis improve the ability to access IT for those who have disability and are also increasingly in demand by today's society seeking convenience and ease of use.

Source: IBM makes a difference with first centre for the disabled, Metro Now, New Delhi, 1 December 2007.

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