The visually impaired students enrolled in various courses of vocational training at National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) are on a path of agitation over non payment of pocket money and non receipt of laptops. More than 150 students belonging to the Training Centre for Adult Blind (TCAB) are on strike from February 13. These students have now threatened to start a hunger strike from Monday if these two issues are not settled immediately by the authorities. On Friday these students organised a protest march in the campus of the NIEPVD. http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/protest-by-visually-impaired-students-at-niepvd.html “The term of our course is about to end but we are yet to receive the pocket money declared by the Ministry of Skill development and the laptop. Our repeated requests have resulted in no response from the officials. On January 13, we organised a protest meeting in the campus and on that day the management assured us that we will receive both these things soon. Now we have decided to take our agitation to a logical end and would start a hunger strike from Monday,’’ said one of the visually impaired student holding hand of another partially blind student. The students informed that they are getting a monthly pocket money of Rs 250 only while the ministry has declared to provide Rs 2500 per month. The students are also annoyed at the delay in the distribution of laptops.
When contacted, the Director of NIEPVD, Anuradha Dalmia said that it is unfortunate that the students have retorted to strike. She said that the order for 274 laptops has been placed by the institute. On non payment of the pocket money, Dalmia said that the ministry has proposed the pocket money amount of Rs 2500 per month but not provided the budget for executing it. She said that the institute is providing Rs 250 per month to the students on its own. The director claimed that five rounds of talks with the students were held but they are not ready to understand. The agitating students have however decided that they would allow 60 students to appear in the computer examination of the National Council of Vocational Training which is slated on February 18. -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[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 Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
