Bringing disabled persons at par with the able-bodied persons as far as instilling confidence among them to survive and face the challenges of life on their own is not the duty of the government only, but also a societal responsibility. Disability among human beings is as old as humanity itself. Right from the primitive society to the modern day world, various ways and means have been adopted to cure and prevent disability among human beings. In India, the problems of disability are perplexed due to its huge population, most of whom living under the shadow of ignorance and poverty.

The process of rehabilitation of the disabled starts with prevention, early identification, intervention, integration and finally leads to rehabilitation. The Government of India brought three important Acts for the welfare of the persons with disabilities, namely, Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) Act (1992), Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act (1995) and National Trust Act (1999). The RCI Act passed by the Parliament gives the responsibility to the Rehabilitation Council of India, a statutory body under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India to frame policies and programmes for the development of manpower in the field of rehabilitation of disabled persons in the country.

Human Resource Development (HRD) deals with creating conditions that enable people to get the best out of themselves. It is a process of competency development in people through public policy, programmes and interventions to help them apply their competencies for their own benefit and for the benefit of others. The core of HRD depends upon the context in which the items are used.

The United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) has defined it as “policies and programmes that support and sustain equitable opportunities for continuing acquisition and application of skills, attitude and competencies which promote individual autonomy and one that is mutually beneficial to individuals, to community and to a larger environment of which they are a part”.

In India, after the independence a lot of attention was paid for the development of medical education in the country, but the problem of disability got very less attention. Since, the prevalence of disability in India is high and figures are uncertain, it was not possible to develop the required number of human resource during the 9th and 10th plans. After the RCI came into existence in 1995, an attempt was made to estimate the future requirement of human resources for projections in the 9th and 10th plans. The expert committee constituted for estimating the demand came out with a report that about 7,24,000 trained personnel are required to cover the total disabled population in the country by the 10th Plan. However, the above estimates are not based on empirical data and cannot be treated as a basis for a rational study.

Keeping in view, this background the dream envisaged to carry out international conference for in-depth study to assess the future requirement of human resources in the field of rehabilitation of persons with disabilities is the ideal one.

To explore these dimensions, TECNIA INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES is organizing a International Conference on the theme "Global Perspective of HRM In Disability Sector” at Auditorium, TIAS , on 28th & 29th January 2011.