National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation provides loans for disabled to assist them in education, livelihood and empowerment etc.

Some of the schemes provided by them are:

• For setting up small business in Service / Trading sector: Loan up to Rs. 3.0 lakh for sales / trading activity  Rs. 5.0 lakh for service sector activity
• For purchase of vehicle including auto rikshaw for commercial hiring: Loan upto Rs. 10 lakh.
• For setting up small industrial unit: Loan upto Rs. 25 lakh. Loan assistance is provided to disabled persons for manufacturing, fabrication and production.
• For Agricultural activities: Loan upto Rs. 10 lakh Loan assistance is provided to disabled persons for agricultural production, irrigation, horticulture, sericulture, purchase of agricultural machinery / equipment for agricultural services, marketing of agricultural products etc.
• For self-employment amongst persons with mental retardation, cerebral palsy and autism: Loan upto Rs. 5 lakh, In such cases, the financial assistance is extended through parents or spouse or legal guardian of the dependant mentally disabled person.
• Loan for Professional / Educational / Training courses: Loan upto Rs. 7.50 lakh for studies in India and upto Rs. 15 lakh for studies abroad.

Micro Credit Scheme by State Channelising Agencies implemented through NGOs: – Loan upto Rs 5 lakh for each NGO and Rs. 25,000/- for each beneficiary.

Parents’ Association of mentally retarded persons: Loan upto Rs. 5 lakh

Financial Assistance for Skills & Entrepreneurial Development :In the form of grant to channelising agencies/reputed training institutions for imparting skills and entrepreneurial development training to disabled persons)

Eligibility Criteria:

• Any Indian Citizen with 40% or more disability.
• Age between 18 and 60 years.
• Annual income below Rs.5,00,000/- (Rupees Five Lakh only) per annum for urban areas and Rs.3,00,000/- (Rupees Three Lakh only) per annum for rural areas.
• Relevant educational / technical / vocational qualification / experience and background.

Source: http://socialjustice.nic.in/nhfdcnew.php

Some noteworthy statements:

 “Disability comes not from impairment, but the obstacles present in the environment”

“The challenges are big, but our determination is bigger” 

“The question is not about some building and some ramps. Its a question of independence of our brothers and sisters with disabilities. This is not a question of some accessible toilets. Its a question of the self respect and pride of our siblings with disabilities.  And its not a question of some accessible websites. Its about the self respect; which is the right of every individual of India.”

Successful launch of Accessible India Campaign today in India by Honourable Ministers Mr Arun Jaitley & Gehlot is indeed an occasion for everybody in India to celebrate as the start of an inclusive and accessible dream.

According to Mr Mukesh Jain, these are the targets in front of us:  “2500 buildings, 3000 websites and 705 railway stations to be made accessible in the coming year 2016”.

We hope and wish this target is met with enthusiasm and zeal from one all, not just the Government, but both private and public institutions, corporates, research centres and individuals. Because this is someone’s right to get an equal opportunity to a dignified life, and as a society it is our responsibility to give them that the means to exercise those rights. Be it education, transport or day to day sustenance.

It was glad to hear from Mr Gehlot about the university being setup exclusively for people with disabilities. Though there might be debates on whether this is against the basic tenet of inclusive society, it would still be a good place of learning with all necessary assistance provided, and some of the latest devices can be readily made available at one place.

For us specifically, it was exciting to hear him mention about new Braille centers and specifically about his forward thinking in mentioning the importance of DAISY, a brilliant technical standard designed to be a complete audio substitute for print material and is specifically designed for use by people with “print disabilities”.

Though we were expecting some announcement on the bringing out a law, nevertheless its still a good start, and we hope to a more accessible India in days ahead.

We all know braille as the writing system used by people who are visually disabled. A brief history of this beautiful system that has made education possible for millions of people for decades:

• In early 1980’s, Charles Barbier, serving in Napoleon;s French army developed a night – writing system for the soldiers – If the soldiers wrote/read in light, they would soon succumb to the enemies who specifically targeted the lights.

• This system was a 6*2 matrix that was comprehensive for communication but not easy to understand through touch.

• Then comes in Louis Braille, also from France, who lost his vision at a very early age in an accident. He was inspired by Barbier’s coding system and spent considerable time to bring down the matrix to 3*2 which could be felt with finger tips.
• This is the most standard and preferred method of writing till today, all thanks to the visualization of two legends –                                        Charles Barbier & Louis Braille

So lets thank them in the beautiful script they have created:

Thank you for your vision that brought in a systematic script for millions who could not see.

Tidbit: Braille is that it is written from right to left and read from left to right

While we keep talking about accessibility, a lot of us may question why is it after all necessary.  Why do we need to spend time and money to make our environments accessible?

Why make our websites, documents etc accessible? How many people with disabilities are there any way? How many of them are skilled to work in your organization or access your website?  How many of them are financially independent to bring in business for you?

If these questions are stopping you from making an investment in making your environments accessible here are some things you should consider

1. Blue ocean strategy:     Across the world, people with various disabilities is on the rise. Add to it the number of people getting older and hence joining this group because of lower vision, issues with hearing, locomotion etc.  Instead of fighting for the same set of people its time we expand the network of customers to bluer oceans.
2. Positive environments:   For many people the most common complaint is they get depressed for petty reasons. An inclusive environment ensures people get inspired in subtle ways and learn to appreciate the power of perseverance, of the passion in life.
3. Word of Mouth marketing: By making your website accessible, you just do not win a person with disability. You win over every friend/family/acquaintance of that person.
4. Brand Image:   People who are open to recruit people with disabilities, get a positive brand image boost. The best example perhaps is Lemon Tree Hotel, India. They have been successful in reducing attrition, improving customer feedback and what more even their social brand image thanks to their policy of recruiting people with disability.
5. Technical advantages:  Making your website and various documents accessible ensures that you get an automatic  inter-operability between browsers.
6. RESPONSIBILITY:  Its your responsibility to give them access and its right to have access. As simple and straight as that. No other reasons are necessary. Its their right to get access and its your responsibility to ensure equal access. For this simple reason – RESPONSIBILITY; you, I and everyone has got to do it. Make our environments both offline and online accessible. Now & TODAY.

Source: http://www.ccdisabilities.nic.in/page.php?s=reg&t=def&f=print&p=dop_t

DEFINITIONS OF DISABILITIES: Definitions of categories of disabilities for the purpose of this Office Memorandum are given below:(i) (a) Blindness: “Blindness” refers to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions, namely:-

• total absence of sight; or
• visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200(snellen) in the better eye with correcting lenses; or
• limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degree or worse;

(b) Low vision: “Person with low vision” means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potentially capable of using vision for the planning or execution of a task with appropriate assistive device.(ii) Hearing Impairment: “Hearing Impairment” means loss of sixty decibels or more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies.(iii) (a) Locomotor disability: “Locomotor disability” means disability of the bones, joints or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy.(b) Cerebral Palsy: “Cerebral Palsy” means a group of non-progressive conditions of a person characterised by abnormal motor control posture resulting from brain insult or injuries occurring in the pre-natal, peri-natal or infant period of development.(c) All the cases of orthopaedically handicapped persons would be covered under the category of “locomotor disability or cerebral palsy.”

DEGREE OF DISABILITY FOR RESERVATION: Only such persons would be eligible for reservation in services / posts who suffer from not less than 40 per cent of relevant disability. A person who wants to avail of benefit of reservation would have to submit a Disability Certificate issued by a competent authority .

Indian Government has made some reservations in employment for the disabled. Though this is fairly petty, compared to the required impetus from Government to ensure more and more people with disabilities are placed in various organizations, it is yet an important piece of information to take care of.

Some basic information:

1. Government reserves 3% jobs of “identified posts” for persons with disabilities in all job categories.
2. What are these identified posts – Posts which the Government assumes can be successfully handled by people irrespective of disability.
3. Of these 3%, 1% is for Visually disabled, 1% for hearing hard and 1% for locomotive disability/ cerebral palsy.
4. According to data available in 2003, only 10.2% of all posts in Ministries/Departments and public establishments have been identified as “identified posts”. Considering 3% of this 10.2% it comes to 0.36% of the jobs that are reserved for people with disability.
5. The reservations are non transferable between various types of disabilities i.e. A job reserved in the visually challenged quota cannot be allocated to a person hard of hearing. The transfer only happens in the consecutive year.  In the above case if no visually challenged person applied in the next year also, the job can given to a hard of hearing person.
6. If any job reserved for people with disabilities is not filled for 3 years, the reservation stands cancelled and the job can be filled by recruiting either an able/disabled person. Till 3 years the job is left open, and carried on to the next year.

To know the jobs reserved for various people with disabilities, check the link below:

http://www.ccdisabilities.nic.in/page.php?s=reg&t=def&p=list_jobsNew

As a team, this was our first official outing. We attended the India Inclusion Summit 2015 organized at Park Ridge, Bangalore. It was one of the most inspiring, heartwarming and eye opening events that we have attended where a lot of taboos were broken, myths busted to the core, and lessons learnt in simple, quick and short anecdotes from the speakers.

Right from the beautiful and charismatic anchors Ms Deepa Narasimhan to the bold and funny speaker Mr Ajit Babu not a single moment was in vain. Mrs Uma Tuli Madam of Amar Jyoti is perhaps one of the pioneers of an inclusive society and it was indeed a proud moment to interact with her.

Mr. Patu Keswani of Lemon Tree Hotels and Mr. Bhavesh Chandubhai of Sunrise candles rightly made us learn the lesson of how disability is in no way a hindrance for a person to earn a dignified job and living for themselves, and what more even feed their family. Mr. Bhavesh with his couplets in Hindi had people clapping and cheering every few minutes. What an inspirational speech it was!!!

The young lady Ms. Kalyani Khona who was chasing entrepreneurial dreams was inspiration for many to dust their dreams of startup and start it now and today! Way to go lady!

And the star attraction of the day Mr. Ramesh Arvind or should I say it was the duo of Mr. Ashwin Karthik and his hilarious talk show with Mr. Ramesh. If that was funny, then the cute duet between Mr. Ramesh Arvind and Ms. Deepa had received quite a few whistles. The day had made us interact with many stars!! A start studded day in the literal sense of it.

I can perhaps go on and on. There were too many memories, many learnings. But let me end it with thanking the brain behind IIS – Mr. Feroze. You are an inspiration for the world of inclusion!!