It's hard to imagine living without cellphones, computers and electronic devices that we use in our day to day lives. However, as per a conservative estimate, there are more than 60 million disabled people in India who have very little or practically no access to these electronic devices.
As the first step to meet this challenge, a national policy on electronic accessibility is being considered by a committee having representatives from central ministries, non-government organisations, private companies and industry associations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India. The information technology ministry had approved the draft policy on electronic accessibility in August 2009 and now it is in the final stage of submission to the Central government for approval.
“The differently-abled find it difficult to use electronic devices and gadgets such as mobile phones and computers that play an important part in everyday life. All big international manufacturers like Siemens and Phonak are making electronic products that cater to the needs of the disabled users but their products are not readily available in India. The policy will go a long way towards making them available in the country,” says Javed Abidi, honorary director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, a registered trust, which was involved in preparing the draft for the electronic accessibility policy.
The draft policy on electronic accessibility emphasises the importance of creating awareness on accessibility and universal designs, for example—a car designed for elderly people developed by students at IIT that performs three functions simultaneously—doors open, the roof retracts and seats slide back when one wants to enter or exit the car. The design bagged the Nissan award in best innovations category.
The draft also emphasises creating and implementing standards and guidelines. It aims to promote R&D in the area of universal design and assistive technology and independent living aids and schemes in the area of accessible technology. The draft emphasises the importance of building capacity to ensure that accessible products and services can be developed in India.
Ratul Ahuja, a research scholar at the National Physical Laboratory, Pusa, who has developed a modified version of the standard blinds' stick and received appreciation from the National Innovation Foundation for his invention, says, “Promoting universal design is still a challenge for the electronics industry. Research incentives should be provided to electronics companies to take up R&D for developing products for the disabled.”
Dr Prabha, proprietor, Electric Ears India Ltd, a Delhi-based distributor of hearing aids for severely hearing impaired, says, “Presently, we have to import most of our products from companies like Phonak and Siemens. With the introduction of the national policy, R&D activities will get a boost and Indian companies will come up with competitive products. This will also reduce the cost of equipment and make them available at cheaper prices in rural areas.” She added that the price range of good quality hearing aid products start at Rs 6,000, making them unaffordable for a majority of disabled people.
According to Alok Vijay Bhatnagar, CEO, Modular Machines, a manufacturer of remote controlled wheelchairs for the disabled, there are no government subsidies available for the manufacturers of such products. “Our supply mainly goes to non-government organisations and agencies that are involved in distributing them to disabled people. It is them who get the governmental support in the form of funds for various projects for the disabled. Even a rise of a few hundred rupees in product cost hurts our customers, so we try to keep them as low as possible.”
Bhatnagar hopes that the national policy on electronic accessibility may give more governmental support to manufacturers and enable improvements in the products. Screen readers, speech recognisers (to dictate documents and e-mails), communication enablers like BIGmack, talking books, talking pens, mobile screen readers and magnifiers are some of the products that are available in the market for the disabled.
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