Javed tells that his NGO’s website (www.ncpedp.org) is accessible to the blind, whereas we are a very small NGO. But why did the Govt. goof up? Why was that awareness not the Govt. for so many years? Neither with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Justice nor with the Ministry of IT no with the Ministry of Telecom ….. and there was no policy. Nobody was raising this issue.”

“We raised the issue for the first time towards the end of last year. In fact on the World Disability Day (Dec.3) last year, we raised 10 demands. We had a large gathering at India Gate. Around 10,000 disabled came from all over India and we raised those demands. One of the demands was that the websites, the Indian websites, particularly the Govt. websites must be made disabled friendly, must be made accessible to the blind or visually impaired,” says Javed.

“The Govt. listened to us, the PM office intervened. They wrote to Ministry of IT and meetings were held and then in Feb.2009, finally the Ministry of IT came out with what is called the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) guidelines for India,” he informs.

“By raising such important issues we could wake up the govt. from deep slumber. We were strict in raising issue and the ministries reacted positively. And, within two months guidelines were made. In future, all govt. websites commissioned by the govt. will have to have feature which makes it websites are being made disabled friendly,” Mr.Abidi informs.

He says things have started to change for the better. Today, nobody can dare to deny admission to anyone in school or college just because the individual is disabled.

He says that the opinion or concern of a disabled can never be of anyone else, not even the parent of the disabled in the process.

NCPEDP’s achievement list includes getting disability included in the Population Census of 2001, sensitizing the corporate world about employing disabled people, marking the University Grants Commission announce schemes for promoting higher education for people with disability, leading a movement to make all public places accessible, partnership with Council of Architecture to ensure that disability forms a part of the curriculum for future architects.

NCPEDP served on the social sector committee of the Planning Commission and is a member of the disability core group with the National Human Rights Commission. (ANI)