Travel News

Mumbai: At ‘Quest for travel’, disabled employees feel at par with regular staff

Laxmi Pawar works like any other receptionist: she always has a cheerful smile when you approach her at the reception counter of ‘Quest to Travel’, a travel management company. But in this office neither her boss nor any of her seniors expect her to stand and greet them. Laxmi is physically handicapped and would find it extremely difficult to stand up every time.

‘Quest to Travel' like any other travel management firms in Mumbai offers a full range of travel services-right from ticket booking to hotel arrangement to handling corporate clients. But it is an agency with difference. Most of the staff, serving there is physically challenged.

More than a third of this company's 45 member staff suffers from some from of physical deformity.

Abhay Rangnekar, CEO of ‘Quest for Travel' states that it is more for personal satisfaction rather than a social obligation that the company decided to employ the handicapped.

He states that in the year 2004 when his company began to diversify into travel management service from graphic solution, he decided that the workforce should include a few handicapped employees as well.

“I was talking to a big businessman and we were discussing the problem of employee turnover that every business faces. He told me that nothing could be done to change this fact of the business. It is then that I put forth the idea to him that these talented people can be utilized,” he told Mumbai Mirror.

Rangnekar states that the next day they visited the National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped (NASEOH).

“Most of the training that such centers provide has zero value as it hardly helps the handicapped fend for themselves. So we decided to train the students there,” Rangnekar says, adding that they invested lakhs of rupees in the same.

“We decided to hire a trained instructor and even chalked out a syllabus for them. After six months of training we selected 11 of the students,” he says.

He states that earlier many lacked the self-confidence and had to be groomed for that. “Initially even it these students performed at 30 per cent, it was more than enough. But now even their old teachers can hardly recognize them-they are apt in handling everything,” he says proudly.

The average salary of these students ranges between Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000.

“While on training, we provide them a stipend of Rs 3,000, but on confirmation- after six months-they are given benefits just like any other employee,” says V S Shirali, a senior official at the company.

“We have never told any of our clients that most of our employees are handicapped as we don't expect them to sympathize with our employees. Some may even feel that we are doing so to cut costs. We never discriminate amongst our employees and all are paid at par,” Rangenkar points out.

“The seniors are as strict with us as they are with the regular staff and we even get a firing in case of any mistake,” says Mangala Bhosale, a handicapped employee at the company. “This makes us feel like normal people, just like others and that's what we actually look forward for,” Mangla told Mumbai Mirror with a smile.

Source: We're normal; feel handicapped staff here. Mumbai Mirror, Daily, Mumbai, 14 August 2006 .