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. |