Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2679583.ece Bangalore, December 2, 2011 2,000 people with disabilities to get jobs in IT, BPO firms Staff Reporter
Initiative to facilitate recruitment of one lakh such people in five years For inclusive growth: (From left) Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Som Mittal, president of NASSCOM; and Ajay Kela, president and CEO of Wadhwani Foundation, addressing presspersons in Bangalore on Thursday. For inclusive growth: (From left) Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Som Mittal, president of NASSCOM; and Ajay Kela, president and CEO of Wadhwani Foundation, addressing presspersons in Bangalore on Thursday. NASSCOM Foundation and the Wadhwani Foundation have come together with the aim of placing 2,000 young people with disabilities in IT and BPO companies across the country within the next two years. This will be the first step in their “accessibility initiative” to facilitate the recruitment of one lakh people with disabilities in the next five years, said Ajay Kela, president and CEO of Wadhwani Foundation. He added that the initiative was seen as a business value proposition and not as part of corporate social responsibility. Mr. Kela added that India had a talent pool of two to three million people with disabilities. Talent pool “Corporate India can derive better business value in terms of higher productivity, reduced attrition and lowered training costs by employing this proven and tenacious talent pool,” he said. The average employment rate of people with disabilities in the private sector is only 0.28 per and in the public sector it is 0.54 per cent, although the proportion of such people in the country exceeds 6 per cent. Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said that accessibility was not just about making the workplace physically accessible for a person in wheelchair; it is about creating an “inclusive ecosystem”. The Accessibility Initiative is founded on a four-fold approach: a leadership commitment, robust policies, capability building, and creating an enabling culture in the organisation. “The aim is to reach every level within an organisation from the top leadership to middle management to the average employee in order to bring about change in policy, change practices and a change in the behaviour and mindset of the average employee towards disability,” Ms. Soni said. Som Mittal, president of NASSCOM, said that the foundation approached the issue as a business imperative as well as a “rights-based” agenda. “We realised the importance of broadening the diversity agenda to include people with disabilities.” Comments to : web.thehi...@thehindu.co.in Copyright © 2011, The Hindu Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in 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
