New Delhi: As part of its initiative to empower Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) and enable opportunities for them, the Confederation of Indian Industry, in partnership with the National Foundation for Corporate Governance (NFCG) and the National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation (NHFDC) organised a Job Fair at the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre for Handicapped, Karkarduma, New Delhi on October 16, 2014. Shri Thawar Chand Gehlot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment said "Giving jobs to PwDs is a service to humanity and imperative for the progress of our country". While congratulating CII and its partners for organising the job fair, he requested for similar initiatives in different states and offered the Ministry's full support. The Minister also appealed to industry for mainstreaming and empowering Persons with Disabilities as an integral part of CSR. Smt. Stuti Kacker, Secretary, Ministry for Social Justice & Empowerment, in her address said that the government is working towards providing universal ID and smart cards for all people with disabilities in order to provide to avail benefits of schemes and access better opportunities. According to an ILO report 'Persons with Disabilities and the India Labour Market- Challenges & Opportunities' of December 2011, out of the 80 million persons with disability in India, only about 0.1 million have been employed by industry. To help bridge this gap, CII organised the Job Fair under the aegis of the CII Foundation, set up to work towards inclusive development by providing a meaningful bridge between marginalized communities and donors, especially corporates. The Job Fair brought together prospective employers and deserving candidates to enable on-the-spot job interviews. The candidates have been identified by CII's outreach partner, V-Shesh, based on the job requirements shared by the prospective employers. The retail, hospitality and IT sectors lead in offering jobs to over 350 job seekers for over 500 positions. Some of the leading employers included, Aegis, Concentrix, Lemon Tree, Reliance Retail, TCS, Max Fashion and EXL. A highlight of the Job Fair was the special interaction with Shri Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, which touched upon critically important areas such as facilitating employment through appropriate incentives, schemes, policies and programmes; upgrading the skill sets of PwDs to match the industry's requirement; the need for universal designs for accessible workplaces and the need for encouraging manufacturing and R&D of assistive devices. Dr Raghupati Singhania, Co-Chair CII National Council on CSR highlighted some of the major challenges in this respect included lack of necessary education and proper skills and training; nature of the workplace; employer perceptions of disabled people; and very few agencies specializing in employment of the differently abled. He offered CII's support in building awareness amongst companies about the various schemes of the Government that promote employment for the PwDs as well as creating a database of agencies which work with the disabled. CII believes that PwDs can make a meaningful contribution to the country's economic growth and has undertaken several initiatives to facilitate this. It has formulated a Corporate Code on Disability, a set of standards for voluntary adoption by companies, with the objective of sensitising industry; set up an exclusive job portal for PwDs (www.ciispecialabilityjobs.in) with Monster India as an institutional partner in this initiative and regularly conducts job fairs and sensitisation workshops in various parts of the country. Source http://indiaeducationdiary.in/Shownews.asp?newsid=31641 -- m. sivakumar. P.hd. International Institute of Tamil Studies CIT Campus, 2nd Main Road, Tharamani, Chennai, 600113
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