"Make websites of Central departments disabled-friendly"
Special Correspondent D. Napoleon TIRUCHI: The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has requested Central government departments and agencies to make their websites disabled-friendly through the use of assistive technologies, said D. Napoleon, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, here on Thursday. The Ministry of Social Justice website already complies with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level AA. Assistive technologies such as screen readers and speech recognition support have already been incorporated on its website. This would enable people with visual and mobility impairment and senior citizens to access the site. There were about 6,000 websites of Central agencies and organisations. All the agencies should follow suit as it was essential for persons with disabilities to know about the schemes implemented for their welfare by the government, he told reporters. Conceding that there was a need to make public infrastructure more disabled-friendly, Mr. Napoleon said as per 2001 figures there were about 2.19 crore persons with disabilities in the country of which 1.06 crore were visually impaired. The government was giving away awards to encourage districts, civic bodies and States to encourage them make their infrastructure disabled-friendly. All new public buildings were required, by law, to be disabled-friendly. Mr. Napoleon said that his Ministry had sought a substantial increase in the annual allocation in the next budget. Among the new schemes proposed were opening of senior citizens homes and sanction of Rs.10 lakh for panchayats, with 50 per cent and more scheduled caste people in their population for improving civic infrastructure. URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/29/stories/2010012960020900.htm 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
