Researchers At Work

NMEICT Funds Book Conversion Project for the Print Disabled

praskrishna — 2011-08-23T04:52:37Z

IIT, Kharagpur, Daisy Forum of India, Inclusive Planet and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands to undertake a project for the print disabled. The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) is funding this project.

NMEICT has funded a project for converting college level text books into daisy format for the print disabled students. This project is being jointly undertaken by IIT, Kharagpur, the Daisy Forum of India, CIS and Inclusive Planet. The vision of the Mission is to fund education projects using ICT to ensure that knowledge resources are made available to learners in a manner and speed which is attuned to their needs. It seeks to increase enrolment in education at various levels by providing an alternate route to conventional educational practices and bridging the gap with the objective of fully utilizing India's human resource potential.

The present project involves organizations around the country to identify 200 college level text books in Hindi, English and five regional languages for conversion into Daisy over the next year. The converted books will be distributed through CDs and a website to 500 universities and colleges around the country. The details of the stage wise progress of the project, including the methodology, partners, technologies and finances will be updated periodically on the dedicated website.

The pilot project commenced on 1st April 2010 and will finish on 31st March, 2011.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nmeict-funding

NISH Website to Help the Disabled

praskrishna — 2014-07-03T10:05:05Z

The National Institute of Speech and Hearing (NISH) has launched a website on matters related to disabilities. The website www.accesshub.org was launched by Social Welfare Minister M K Muneer here on Wednesday.

The article was published in the New Indian Express on June 26, 2014.

Jointly created by NISH and a team from the School of Information, Michigan University, the website is intended to be a one-stop shop for information that could prove important to people with disabilities, NISH executive director Samuel N Mathew said.

www.accesshub.org can be easily navigated and contains the latest information in this area, services that are on offer worldwide and policy information of various states. The website has been created with a software that enables visually handicapped people also to use it.

Work on the website had started in November 2013 under Dr Anne Varghese of NISH.

Three postgraduate students of the Michigan University provided ample help to the project.

The website will be useful to service providers in this sector as well as government and non-governmental organisations, NISH officials said.

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, and Inclusive Planet, Chennai, are the organisations that have associated with the website project.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-new-indian-express-june-26-2014-nish-website-to-help-disabled

Nirmita receives NIVH Award

praskrishna — 2011-12-29T05:53:19Z

Nirmita Narasimhan received the NIVH Excellence Award from Justice AS Anand (retd), former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun on Saturday, 3 December 2011.

A programme manager with the Centre for Internet and Society, Nirmita says: “I wanted to learn all these things to make my life worthwhile, maybe I wanted to prove a point but it has been a great journey all this while,” she said.

The Tribune covered the award ceremony and published this in their newspaper on 3 December 2011. Read it here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award

Nirmita Narasimhan wins the 18th NCPEDP-Mindtree Helen Keller Award 2017!

Admin — 2017-10-31T02:02:59Z

Nirmita Narasimhan been selected for the 18th NCPEDP - Mindtree Helen Keller Awards 2017. The Award will be given away on Saturday, 2 December 2017 at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi.

NCPEDP-Mindtree Helen Keller Award

The story of the Helen Keller Awards started way back in 1999 as a result of the findings of a survey conducted of the Top 100 Companies of India by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP). The results showed that the average percentage of employment of people with disabilities was as follows: in the public sector: 0.54 percent; in the private sector: 0.28 percent; and in the multinationals: 0.05 percent. While the situation has improved to some extent in the past decade and a half, we are still not even close to covering half the percentage of persons with disabilities living in the country.

The objective of the NCPEDP Helen Keller Awards was to start a discourse on equal opportunities for persons with disabilities in the area of employment at a time when no one was even thinking about it. Organisations and employees with disabilities would become brand ambassadors for the cause of employment of persons with disabilities and take the momentum forward and role models would be identified and celebrated in an attempt to motivate and encourage others. Over the years, these Awards have come to be recognised as the most prestigious Indian benchmark for honouring people and organisations which have been working towards promoting employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

The Awards are given under 3 categories:

Category A: Role Model Disabled Person

Disabled persons from within the disability sector and outside who have been active as ambassadors of the cause of employment for disabled people and are a positive role model for others.

Category B: Role Model Supporter of Increased Employment Opportunities for Disabled People

Individuals from within the disability sector or outside who have contributed substantially to the cause of promoting employment opportunities for disabled people over an extended period of time.

Category C: Role Model Companies/NGOs/Institutions

Organisations from the disability sector or outside who have shown their commitment towards promoting equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

For more see National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/nirmita-narasimhan-wins-the-18th-ncpedp-mindtree-helen-keller-award-2017

Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award

praskrishna — 2011-08-17T08:53:12Z

Nirmita Narasimhan was awarded the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010 on the occasion of the World Disability Day. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The award function took place at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi from 11:00 to12:30 and was telecast live on Doordarshan.

Nirmita was given a certificate, cash prize and a citation which reads as follows:

Nirmita Narasimhan has excelled in different and diverse fields, despite having a severe disability. She is a gold medallist in MA (Music) from Delhi University and stood first in M.Phil. in Carnatic music from Delhi University. She is the recipient of the Sahitya Kala Parishad scholarship for advanced studies in Carnatic music from the Delhi Government. She is now working actively for digital inclusion and accessibility issues for persons with disabilities at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Also see the list of recipients in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award

Nirmita Narasimhan gets NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award

praskrishna — 2016-08-18T13:26:56Z

The NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Awards were given away in the capital on August 14, 2016. Nirmita got the award in the "Persons with Disabilities" category.

See the press release published by India PR Wire. This was also mirrored in Hans India on August 17, 2016.

Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Hon'ble Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment presided over the event, in the presence of Som Mittal, Jury Chair and Chariman, NCPEDP, Dr. Meenu Bhambhani, VP & Head - Corporate Social Responsibility, Mphasis Ltd, and Javed Abidi, Honorary Director NCPEDP, several corporates and winners.

The National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP)-Mphasis Universal Design Awards was incepted in 2010. Conservative estimates of the World Bank and World Health Organization suggest that there are about 70-100 million individuals with a disability in India.

One of the biggest challenges faced by people with disabilities is accessibility. Accessibility not only means access to physical spaces but also means access to information, technology, transport, services, aids and appliances, etc.

The awards aim to raise awareness about accessibility. This year, about 60 applications were received from across the country. The awards are the brainchild of Javed Abidi, who is also the global chair for Disabled People's International (DPI).

The 12 award winners were as follows:-

Category: Organisations

Indigo Airlines, University of Hyderabad, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Newshook, Planet Abled, Sap Labs

Category: Working Professionals

Prem Nawaz Khan Maraikayar of PayPal Inc; Sandeep Sankat, Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal; and Sujatha Srinivasan of Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras bagged the awards.

Category: Persons with disabilities

Danish Mahajan and Divya Sharma of Radio Udaan; Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director with the Centre for Internet and Society; and Sathasivam Kannupayan of www.enabled.in won this award in the in persons with disabilities category.

Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Hon'ble Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment observed, "Commuting for the handicapped is a challenge in our country. Therefore all modes of transport should work towards this cause. We have to create a code of benefit for persons with disabilities, which ought to be complied with by all government and non-government institutions."

"Through this award, we want to be able to tell organizations in India that accessibility is a huge commercial opportunity as well as a social responsibility. We are delighted with some of the work we have seen this year, but sincerely hope that more and more organizations come into the fold, " said Javed Abidi.

Dr Meenu Bhambhani, VP & Head- Corporate Social Responsibility, Mphasis Ltd said,

" Mphasis started supporting universal design because we didn't want accessibility to just be an afterthought. From the very beginning, be it transport or building or policy or the system, persons with disabilities should be included in the services. It warms my heart to see so many young people winning the award this year."

Shri Som Mittal, Jury Chair and Chariman, NCPEDP, "I've been witnessing this award function for the past seven years and every year we assume we're not going to get applications. However, when the jury sits every year, sometimes it takes us all day to come to a decision. Universal design just needn't be an idea but it needs to be commercialised."

Awardees

Above: Winners pose with their awards.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/nirmita-narasimhan-gets-ncpedp-mphasis-universal-design-award

Nirmita Narasimhan appointed to the Communication Policy Research (CPRsouth) Board

praskrishna — 2016-12-26T00:27:47Z

Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan has been appointed to the CPR South Board for a term of 3 years.

New appointments to the CPRsouth board were ratified during the recent meeting at CPRsouth 2016 in Zanzibar, and a copy of these minutes will be circulated to new board members in the New Year. CPRsouth revealed regional and gender representation improved as a result of the selection of new board members, and the consideration given to the matter of representation by existing board members who cast their votes meant that there was no need for quotas. The CPRsouth board now comprises nine African members and 11 Asians, and 11 of its members are male and nine are female.

New board members’ terms run until September 2020 under its new Chairperson, Prof Rohan Samarajiva (Founding Chair, LIRNEasia), and outgoing Chairperson, Prof Alison Gillwald (Executive Director, Research ICT Africa), will remain on as Vice-Chairperson.

The secretariat will be in touch again in the New Year with details of the upcoming CPRsouth 2017.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/nirmita-narasimhan-appointed-to-the-communication-policy-research-cprsouth-board

Neeta Verma Presentation File

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T12:51:21Z

presentation file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/neeta-verma-presentation

NCIDEEE

radha — 2011-08-22T13:16:49Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/Consolidated%20Programme.pdf

National Workshop on Web Accessibility, June 2009

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:12Z

A workshop on web accessibility (for web developers only) in Bangalore

The Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org) and Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled (www.samarthanam.org) are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from the public and private sector from June 5 to 7, 2009. The workshop will take place at the Centre for Internet and Society office on Cunningham Road, Bangalore, between 09:30-17:30 hours each day.

The workshop seeks to bring together practitioners from the private and public sector from all across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers will be specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The participants will be persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc.

In addition to training web developers in accessibility, the workshop will also serve as a platform for capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of one of the outcomes of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

Registration

To register, please email Nirmita Narsimhan at nirmita@cis-india.org or call 080-4092-6283. There is no registration fee.

National Policy on Electronic Accessibility

One of the primary endeavors of several disability organizations around the country is to have a national policy which governs electronic accessibility in India. CIS has been a forerunner in advocating for the policy and is actively working with the government in formulating the policy. As part of its advocacy efforts, CIS is also involved in capacity building through organizing workshops and awareness spreading in the private and public sectors.

Trainers

Rahul Gonsalves

Rahul has been building accessible websites since 2005 (sample work at http://rahulgonsalves.com/projects/). He has been actively involved in promoting web and accessibility standards. He spoke at the first international accessibility and technology conference in India, Techshare 2008, where he made a case for accessibility and conducted a workshop on retrofitting accessibility to existing websites, a concern for most large institutions with an existing online presence (slides available at http://www.barrierbreak.com/events-conference/techshare_presentations2008.php#track3)

In September 2008, he presented a paper examining ways in which people with various impairments - both physical and mental – engage with online content, and demonstrated practical ways in which authors can make online content accessible at the National Conference on ICT for Differently Abled People. He is a supporter of the push for having a national policy for governing electronic accessibility in India.

Dinesh Kaushal

Dinesh has been involved in the area of accessibility, specifically product development throughout his career. He started with developing SAFA (Screen Access for All), which is the first Indian language screen reader. He worked independently on this for a year, during which time he got a good understanding of the complete software development life cycle. SAFA was envisioned to facilitate reading and writing in Indian languages at affordable cost, with a view to enabling better jobs and education for persons with blindness and low vision. SAFA is a unique software as it has to interact with other applications to get information and present this information to the users in the format convenient for them. SAFA is currently being used by blind persons in their jobs, for their studies, and even for their exams and is available in 11 iIdian languages for which text to speech synthesizers are available. His subsequent work involved leading a team to develop a Daisy book player. Daisy books are xml based marked-up digital books which provide efficient access to the information for persons with blindness. His responsibilities were team coordination, software requirement specification, design specification, and monitoring testing. He is presently working with Code Factory as Lead Developer (Braille) for screen readers for the windows mobile platform. This software enables persons with blindness to get access to mobile phones and PDAs, making it possible to access information at par with their sighted colleagues. His role is to provide this information via Braille displays. The Braille display allows blind persons to read SMS, work with contacts and documents, navigate with the help of GPS, etc using electronic Braille. This product is available for more than 20 languages and is available all over the world.

Ajay Kolhatkar

Dr. Ajay Kolhatkar co-leads the web usability and accessibility research at the Web 2.0 Research Labs at SETLabs. Presently he manages the evangelization of Web Accessibility Assessment and Remediation product called Infosys iProwe developed by their lab. Ajay has a PhD in technology marketing from IIT Bombay. His research there focused on Consumer's Acceptance of Technology Based Services. The key research problem was modeling the attitude-behaviour linkage for technology acceptance and the critical role played by personality factors and situational factors. The context for the study was Automated Teller Machines. Presently his research interests include usability of self-service channels; technology adoption; consumer behaviour in technology interfaces etc. An electrical engineer from the College of Engineering, Pune and an MBA in Marketing from Symbiosis Institute, Pune, Ajay has over 16 years of industry experience. He can be contacted at Ajay_Kolhatkar@infosys.com

Proposed Sessions

Day 1

09:00-10:00: Introduction of participants, trainers and organisers
10:00-11:30: Session 1

Understanding disability;
Working with disabilities -- The need for an accessible web

This session will familiarise the participants with different types of disabilities and the work arounds, in terms of assistive technologies or simple modifications which will enable them to work effectively using computers.

11:30-11:45: Tea Break
11:45-13:00: Session 2 - Building an Accessible Website

Laying Accessible Foundations
Table-less layouts
Well-structured markup
Valid code

13:00-14:00: Lunch
14:00-15:30: Session 3--Group exercise
Participants will have to identify and use semantic markup to describe different parts of a given layout. They will then have to write basic HTML/CSS code to present the website and validate it using online/desktop tools.
15:30-15:45: Tea break
15:45-17:15: Session 4 - Building an Accessible Website
Participants will have a chance to use a variety of assistive technologies (screen readers/braille displays) and there will be an exercise followed be a group discussion. Sequential Access/Role play will be conducted which will help them understand some of the problems related to electronic accessibility.
17:15-17:30: Summary and winding up

Day 2
09:15-11:00: Session 5 - Building an Accessible Website

Removing Barriers
Principle 1 - Perception
Non-text content
Audio/Visual content
Adaptability
Contrast

11:00-11:15: Tea break

11:15-13:00: Session 6 - Principle 2 - Operable

Keyboard Access
Enough Time
Seizures
Navigable

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-15:30: Group Exercise

Participants will be given online tools to evaluate colour contrast. They will have to evaluate and correct a layout for adequate contrast.
Participants will have to prepare a transcript of a one-minute film.

15:30-15:45: Tea break

15:45:16:15: Session 7 - Accessibility in documents
16:15-17:30: Session 8 - Principle 3 - Understandable, and Principle 4 - Robust

Natural Language
Predictable
Input Assistance
Compatible

Winding up, feedback and clarification

Day 3

09:15 -9:45: Flash accessibility

9:45-11:15: Group Exercise - Putting it all together
Participants will complete building the website(s)

11:15-11:30: Tea Break

11:30-12:45: Accessibility testing

Group Exercise - Testing + Validating using automated testing tools as well as manual testing

The website that has been built will be validated to HTML, CSS and WCAG standards.
All errors identified will have to be corrected in a participatory fashion.

12:45-13:00: Wrapping up

Action points -- The road ahead

13:15- 14:00: Lunch

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/national-workshop-on-web-accessibility-june-2009

National Workshop on Web Accessibility

radha — 2011-08-31T10:46:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE) are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from the public and private sector from September 25th to 26th, 2009.

The workshop seeks to bring together practitioners from Government Departments, as well as from small and medium enterprises across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training comprises both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers are specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The workshop is for persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. In addition to training web developers in accessibility, the workshop will also serve as a platform for capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers.

The programme is supported by Kerala State IT Mission, which runs INSIGHT - ICT Centre for the differently abled in association with SPACE.

The workshop will take place at Christ Nagar International School, Kowdiar, Thiruvananthapuram, between 09:30-17:30 hours each day.

Hurry! Interested persons are requested to register immediately as seats are limited.

Candidates may register directly on the website at http://c11.space-kerala.org/webw/ OR fill the application form attached and post/ submit to SPACE office (contact@space-kerala.org, thomas@space-kerala.org)

SPACE Office Address
Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment
C-11, Elankom Gardens,
Vellayambalam, Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala, India

To download the registeration form, please click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/announcement-of-national-workshop-on-web-accessibility

National Workshop on Web Accessibility

radha — 2011-08-22T12:54:22Z

Registration form

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/registration_form-%20Workshop%20on%20Web%20Accessibility.pdf

National Resource Kit: The Uttarakhand Chapter (Call for Comments)

anandi — 2013-11-07T06:15:11Z

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Uttarakhand.

Executive Summary

Uttarakhand is yet to enact any specific legislation for persons with disabilities. The state currently implements certain social security schemes and provides scholarships for students with disabilities.

State Profile

Capital: Dehradun
Population: 10,116,752
Population of Persons with Disabilities: 1, 94, 769 (2001 Census)
Literacy: 79.63%
HDI: 0.515 Rank: 7th[1]
Department: Social Welfare Department
Directorate: Directorate of Social Welfare

Legal Provisions
The government of Uttarakhand has not enacted any legislation specifically for persons with disabilities. The state has implemented some social protection initiatives and schemes for education. These are listed categorically as below:

Education
Students with disabilities or students whose guardians are persons with disabilities and whose monthly income does not exceed Rs. 2000 are eligible to receive scholarships.

Scholarships are provided from class 1 to post-graduate level education as per the below mentioned rates and standards:

Category	Standard for Scholarship			Period (Maximum)
Handicapped Student	Class	Rate Per Month	Limit of Income of Parents
	1 - 5	Rs. 50/-	Maximum Rs.2000/- per month	12 months
	6 - 8	Rs. 80/-	Maximum Rs.2000/- per month	12 months
	9 - 10	Rs. 170/-	Maximum Rs.2000/- per month	12 months
Standard for Scholarship	Rate Per Month		Limit of Annual Income of Parents	Period (Maximum)
	Hosteller	Day Scholar	Maximum upto Rs.24,000/- per year	From the date of admission to the month of examination of the last year. (If the admission is taken after the 20th day of the month than the scholarship will be applicable from following month).
Inter	Rs.140/-	Rs. 85/-
Graduation	Rs.180/-	Rs. 125/-
Post Graduation and other Vocational Course	Rs.240/-	Rs.170/-

Social Protection
The government of Uttarakhand provides a maintenance grant to destitute persons with disabilities at the rate of Rs. 600 per month. Disabled persons eligible for this pension should either belong to the BPL category or persons whose monthly income does not exceed Rs. 1000. Persons with disabilities in the age group of 18 to 65 years with 80 per cent or more disability or who have multiple disabilities and are below the poverty line are eligible to receive a grant of Rs. 400 from the state government and Rs. 200 from the Government of India under the National Disability Pension Scheme. Persons with disabilities who are leprosy cured are eligible for a grant of Rs. 1000 per month. Persons with disabilities applying for the grant should at least have 40 per cent of disability as certified by the concerned Chief Medical Officer. He / she should not have any other source of income. Those applicants whose sons / grandsons are below 20 years of age and who live below the poverty line are eligible to apply for the grant.

The government has brought out a scheme that honours employees for achievements with state level awards for the best employee in case of employees with disabilities and persons with disabilities who are self employed. Other categories include best employer and placement officers. The government provides a cash award of Rs. 500 along with a letter of appreciation by the Department of Social Welfare.

The state provides marriage grants for persons with disabilities provided that the couple are citizens of India and are domiciled in Uttarakhand or have been residing in the state for five or more years and provided that neither the bride nor the groom have been convicted in any criminal case. Rs. 11,000 is given as a grant when the bridegroom is disabled and a grant of Rs. 14,000 is given in cases where either the bride or both bride and groom are disabled.

The government of Uttarakhand has introduced a shop construction rehabilitation scheme wherein those persons with disabilities who have their own land will be provided a loan of Rs. 20,000 to set up their shop. The government provides Rs. 15,000 as loan at an interest of four per cent and the remaining Rs. 5000 is given as a grant.

Persons with disabilities are eligible to travel free of cost on buses belonging to the State Road Transport Corporation.

The Department of Social Welfare provides a maximum grant of Rs. 3500 to persons with disabilities for the purchase of artificial organ and hearing aid equipment. Persons with disabilities applying for this grant should not have a monthly income of more than 1000

Under the central ADIP scheme, persons with disabilities are provided grants to acquire artificial organs, aids and appliances through the implementing agencies / institutions. These are:

Narayan Sewa Sansthan Trust, Sewadham Sewanagar, Hiran Magari, Sector-4, Udaipur – 313040 – Rajasthan
Bajaj Institute of Learning, 155, Rajpur Road, Dehradun
National Institute for the Blind, 116, Rajpur Road, Dehradun.

The state government conducts camps and seminars for persons with disabilities to sanction their pensions. These camps are conducted near their village panchayats or judicial panchayats for the convenience of persons with disabilities.

[1].https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttarakhand

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-uttarakhand-chapter-call-for-comments

National Resource Kit: The Uttar Pradesh Chapter (Call for Comments)

Manojna Yeluri — 2013-04-03T10:49:25Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and the Hans Foundation are pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Note: This chapter is an early draft which is in the process of being reviewed and updated. Comments and feedback are welcome.

Summary

The State of Uttar Pradesh has taken several measures by way of schemes, programmes, government orders and notifications for the benefit of persons living with disabilities. The state government has established shelter homes and vocational training centres in several parts of the states — most recently in Meerut, Bareilly and Gorakhpur. The state government has also undertaken to finance nearly 4340 corrective surgeries for polio across nine cities of Uttar Pradesh. The state government has also attempted to alleviate stress and difficulties faced in the process of procuring a disability certificate, by providing clear guidelines as to the issue and procurement of such certificates, and by also creating a decentralised system of disability certification where the certification may be obtained from private practitioners, government health care centres, primary and secondary health care centres, private psychologists and psychiatrists who are authorised to issue certificates of mental retardation (MR).

The State of Uttar Pradesh has thus emphasised the need for several notifications and schemes to suit the specialized requirements of persons with disabilities. The Disabled Welfare Department vide GO No 1464/65-2-2000-178/2000 dated 30.09.2000 released a list of the various schemes and allied programme measures made available by the State Government for the benefit of persons with disabilities and the eligibility criteria for those interested in availing benefits under this. The schemes and measures mentioned in the order include;

Schemes for providing scholarships for educational and vocational training to students who have been physically disabled (Students from Class 1-12, Graduation and Post Graduation).
Schemes to provide disability pension for unemployed and poor persons suffering from visual impairment, speech impediments and physical disability.
Schemes to provide financial assistance for the purchase and procurement of aids and appliances.
Scheme to provide incentives and grants to encourage marriages with persons living with disabilities.
Schemes related to providing free travel by bus to persons with disabilities
Schemes for the employment and setting up of shops by persons with disabilities, 1998

The State of Uttar Pradesh has also intended to start several projects in 2013. These include the establishment of a Braille Press in order to produce Braille books, magazines and other study material.

Click to download the full chapter here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-uttar-pradesh-chapter-call-for-comments

National Resource Kit: The Tripura Chapter (Call for Comments)

CLPR — 2013-11-13T09:58:16Z

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Tripura.

Note: The chapter is an early draft and will undergo subsequent modifications. We welcome comments and feedback from our readers.

Executive Summary

In February 2008, Tripura was ranked to be the second among the North eastern states in their implementation of Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.

Quick Statistics

Capital: Agartala
Population (2011): 3,671,032
People with disabilities (2000): 58,940
Literacy: 87.75%

Legal Provisions

The Government of Tripura has not implemented any state specific legislation and has enforced the following schemes under the Department of Social Welfare:

Accessibility

Free bus pass for persons with disabilities are given for travel on the State Transport Buses

Aids and Appliances
There is no State Government scheme for provision of aids and appliances. The Central Government Assistance to Disabled Persons Scheme (ADIP) has distributed funds to the state of Tripura for implementation. [1]

Education

Educational Institutions: 2 seats are reserved in each industrial training Institutes. A special residential school is set up in the State with modern Instruments for the hearing and speech impaired students.
In 2009, the Tripura government planned on introducing a home-based education program (HBEP) for children with disabilties who were unable to attend schools, in lieu of governmental measures to train teachers and equip schools with adequate infrastructure for disabled students.
Scholarship/Stipend: Scholarship is given to different category of students with disabilities from Class I to Class VIII. The details are as follows:

Rs.70/– p.m. to Rs.95/– p.m. – For blind and hearing impaired.
Rs.60/– p.m. to Rs.80/– p.m. – For other categories of handicapped
Students of Class IX to University level also get scholarship up to the maximum of Rs.240/– p.m. depending on the class/course. Scholarship is also given to the students with disablties for doing music course, vocational course, technical course and professional course.[2]

Employment

Reservation in Government Job: 3% jobs in Class III and Class IV posts are reserved for the persons with disabilities
Age Relaxation: Upper age limit is relaxed by 5 yrs for persons with disabilties for applying in Government Jobs.
Conveyance Allowance: Conveyance allowance up to Rs.50/– p.m. is given to the employees with disabilities belonging Grade ‘C’ and ‘D’.
Assistance for self-employment: Persons with disabilities get assistance for self-employment from the State Government.

Social Protection

Incentive for Marrying disabled: Incentive to the tune of Rs.5000/– for the marriage to a person with disabilities is given by the Social Welfare Department of the State Government.
Five persons in each of the 956 Gram Panchayats, 9 Nagar Panchayats and each ward of the municipality area (Agartala Municipality) are being given pension at the rate of Rs.100/–p.m.[3]

Miscellaneous

Tripura has a web based application called Physically Challenged Persons Information System (PCPIS) which issues disability certificates to physically challenged persons on the day of their medical checkup; captures details like personal information, education and employment information along with their image and fingerprint; as well as a record of the state assistance they make use of (scholarship, stipend for the complete blind, travelling allowance, etc.) and a record of the appliances issued to the person by the District Disability Rehabilitation Centre.

[1]. http://www.tripurastat.com/socialandwelfareschemes/27/disabledscheme/369478/stats.aspx

[2]. http://www.tripurastat.com/socialandwelfareschemes/27/disabledscheme/369478/stats.aspx

[3]. http://tsu.trp.nic.in/src/AboutSRC3.htm, http://mospi.nic.in/Mospi_New/upload/disablity_india_statistical_data_11mar2011/Appendix%201%20Tables.pdf

[4]. http://www.tripurastat.com/socialandwelfareschemes/27/disabledscheme/369478/stats.aspx

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/the-tripura-chapter