>From Downtown plus supplement of Mumbai times of India dated 29 September >2006.
HC order shoots up vacancies by 500 % Within two weeks of the new order, the employment agency for the handicapped declares a rise in percentages. Eisha Sarkar, Nariman Point Just a fortnight after the High Court pulled up the government for not filling up the three per cent quota for disabled in government and semi-government agencies, the Employment and Self-employment Exchange for the Physically Handicapped (ESEPH) at Nariman Point claims the number of notifications have gone up by almost 500 per cent. "In the last two weeks, we have got about 30 notifications. This, in comparison to, approximately five notifications a month," says PV Deshmane, assistant director, ESEPH. So, is it finally good news for those who have been desperately searching for a government job? "Certainly not," retorts Vandana Garware, director, National Job Development Centre (NJDC) that works under the umbrella of the Colaba-based Spastic Society of India (SSI). She explains, "Government exchanges anyway have long waiting lists. Mismatch of jobs vis-à-vis candidates are common. We require more NGOs working with the disabled to be notified in case of vacancies as well," she explains. One of the two such NGOs that filed the PIL at the High Court, is Worli-based National Association for the Blind (NAB), that runs employment bureaus across Mumbai and sees through 200 employments of the blind. Secretary Suhas Karnik who works as an officer at the estate department of the Bank of India's head office at Fountain, believes, "Three per cent is not enough. We are pushing for five per cent. The Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Right and Full Participation) Act, 1995, came to Maharashtra as late as 2001. Yet it still has loopholes." One major loophole: if you are a government body, the Act states that you will get incentives for hiring the disabled. "But the type of incentive is not mentioned," says Karnik. The ESEPH has a database of 6,000 disabled people in Mumbai city and suburbs. Yet even that doesn't guarantee a job for the disabled. As Deshmane points out, "We send around 15 candidates for one post but the agencies get thousands of applications through the open market as well." Malabar Hill-based lawyer Kanchan Pamnani doesn't seem very optimistic either, "Reservation allows only class III and IV jobs which is not a great prospect. Still, it's a huge step for the disabled who were restricted to broom-making, candle-making, block-printing, teleoperations and booth management." Qualified to be unemployed? Vandana Garware of National Job Development Centre (NJDC), says, "It's difficult to find qualified disabled people. Especially since infrastructural educational facilities are not available." Take the case of 30-year-old Robinson Francis D'Souza who is the coordinator of Rainbow Melody, a Girgaum-based 20-member orchestra that comprises only the visually challenged. D'Souza would have loved to become a teacher and had even taken up a BEd course. He says, "I managed to get in through the quota but I wasn't allowed to lecture any students. After all the discrimination, I started a blind band." Padma Shree Rajendra T Vyas, honourary secretary general, NAB, believes, "The problem is not of schooling the disabled, the problem is that there is a dearth of innovation in teaching. Once that is resolved, there's no stopping us." Information Technology industry beckons the disabled with the surge of jobs in the IT, BPO and call-centre industry, the disabled are looking for new vocations in the fields of secretarial practice, telemarketing, data entry, insurance, bank data processing, editing, transcription, e-Coaching, voice/accent trainers and sales. "The screen-reader has been of great help to us. We use a special software, Job Access With Speech (JAWS), which has put us onto a level-playing field with everyone," says Suhas Karnik of NAB. UR Dalal, general manager at the Fellowship of the Physically Handicapped (FPH), Haji Ali, says, "The idea is not to compare salaries with ordinary people. We simply want the less advantaged to be independent." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
