Differently abled persons

It is heartening to learn that the society is increasingly becoming aware of the presence of persons with disability in our midst, and also the fact that they are quite capable of contributing to national development and nation building given the opportunity and the facility to do. These came out very clearly in a seminar on inclusion of persons with disability in workplace organised by this newspaper along with the German development agency GIZ and Center for Disability in Development. 

The number of persons with disability cannot be definitively ascertained since no census in this regard has been done as yet, but going by the criterion fixed by UN which assumes that there are about 15 percent disabled persons in the world, our share of it is quite large. And they cannot be written off. On the contrary, if trained appropriately they can become a useful component of our large human resource base. Thus the government's moves to frame appropriate rules and regulations for ensuring their employment and also setting up training facilities to prepare them sufficiently and suitably for absorption in the private sector is indeed timely and appropriate. 

The seminar's focus was primarily on the RMG industry, it being the largest employer in the private sector. Given the huge export potential by the year 2012, the manpower needed in this sector would be about eight million. And although progress has been made in this regard there is need for a greater awareness among the RMG factory owners, and for that matter all private sector employers, that people with disability can and indeed deliver, in some cases more and better than the 'abled' persons.