The Hindu : Move to sensitise IAS officers about disabled

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 31, 2003

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Move to sensitise IAS officers about disabled

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MARCH 30. The Rehabilitation Council of India, a statutory body under the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, has come out with a module to sensitise Indian Administrative Officers (IAS) about the problems and potentials of persons with disabilities. The module, it is hoped, will be incorporated into the training program for young IAS officers at the Mussorie-based Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy.

``We are already sensitising primary health doctors and teachers across the country about the various issues pertaining to disability management. Sensitisation of legislators is also underway. As part of these training programmes, it was suggested that the RCI should come out with a module for IAS officers,'' informs J. P. Singh, Member-Secretary, RCI.

The need for sensitising IAS officers especially the budding ones was acutely felt as many of them are in key decision-making positions in various parts of the country. And sensitising them to the problem and potential of persons with disabilities, feel experts, is one way of ensuring that they are integrated into the mainstream of society and included in all walks of life.

``We have prepared the module keeping in mind the fact that the IAS officers need to be sensitised to the managerial and administrative aspects of disability besides of course, motivating them to make inclusion a way of life,'' says Dr. Singh, adding that an expert committee was constituted in this regard to frame the curriculum.

While the Committee has now come out with a draft module, the modalities of the first sensitisation programme are presently being worked out. The RCI has written to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy urging them to incorporate the module into the training programme for budding IAS officers and a concurrence in this regard is awaited. "The module can also be tried out by bodies like the Indian Institute of Public Administration which aim at increasing the skills and capabilities of functioning IAS officers,'' it has been pointed out.

Though no detailed surveys have been carried out, it has generally been felt by non-government organisations working for the welfare of persons with disability that serving IAS officers have very little knowledge about disability issues and they are not sensitized to the fact that many of them can do jobs equally well, if not better than their normal counter-parts. It was this lack of awareness that prompted the RCI to work on a sensitisation module for IAS officers.

An attempt to sensitise the budding IAS officers was made by the National Council for Promotion of Employment for the Disabled Persons (NCPEDP) a couple of years ago when it organised a sensitisation workshop at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Mussoorie. The module prepared by the RCI, it is hoped, can make sensitisation attempts like these a continuous and sustained affair.

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