Ability Forum

[ajaychawla]

Sir
I understand that creating more  government jobs that too jobs for the handicapped , identifying jobs and the acceptable kind of disability for the demands of work is a big difficulty due to constraints of budget and monitoring problems

It is a well known fact that Central Government State Governments , Government Departments and PSUs hire the services of the outsiders for various Works on contractual basis like

Taxi Hire,
Annual Maintenance Contracts for Building, Generators, Computer systems, ACs etc
Annual Whitewashing
Postage and Courier Agencies
Goods Carriage Contracts
Printing of Stationery
Services of the Architects
Website Developments
Data Entry Works
Architects
Interior Designers
Internal and Statutory Auditors
Advertising Agencies
Legal services Drafting of Petitions, Appearance before Adjudicating Authorities
Accounting Services
Documentation
Software development/ Modification/ Maintenance
And many others


In all these services the service provider is not the employee or staff of the employer but provides services for a predetermined remuneration does his work and goes off. Various organizations, Government Departments PSUs and private sector also maintain a panel
of all these service providers or bring out tenders and allot the jobs. Varied  criteria are fixed for the allotment of work like seniority, merits and claims of the service provider, Staff  of the service providers, no. of years experience in the job, technical competence besides also some negative points to eliminate rush and encourage change of service providers like Minimum Income of the service provider and the cooling period after a specified duration of continuity of work


In all these the scope of employment generation is huge. In my opinion if some weightage points are given to the persons with disabilities (PWDs) and by the eliminating clauses removed without compromising on the quality, seniority, merits and costs of the job it can make a difference in their life in the following ways

1)     As PWDs cannot run about the work it will save them from some heat of the market forces while retaining the warmth

1)     It will encourage PWDS to self employment thereby raising their self esteem

2)     It will not lead to complacency as the job/ work guarantee is not there

3)      It will not bring out anti quota or anti reservation demonstrations and brood unfairness in the minds of able bodied

3)     It will encourage self development of the business by PWDs to bring up and safeguard their status
4)     It will provide  PWDs with continuous flow of work     

5)         PWDs will be able to coordinate take help and even employ staff to compensate for their deformity

I solicit you valuable views on this topic




AJAY CHAWLA

Sir
I understand that creating more  government jobs that too jobs for the handicapped , identifying jobs and the acceptable kind of disability for the demands of work is a big difficulty due to constraints of budget and monitoring problems

It is a well known fact that Central Government State Governments , Government Departments and PSUs hire the services of the outsiders for various Works on contractual basis like

Taxi Hire,
Annual Maintenance Contracts for Building, Generators, Computer systems, ACs etc
Annual Whitewashing
Postage and Courier Agencies
Goods Carriage Contracts
Printing of Stationery
Services of the Architects
Website Developments
Data Entry Works
Architects
Interior Designers
Internal and Statutory Auditors
Advertising Agencies
Legal services Drafting of Petitions, Appearance before Adjudicating Authorities
Accounting Services
Documentation
Software development/ Modification/ Maintenance
And many others


In all these services the service provider is not the employee or staff of the employer but provides services for a predetermined remuneration does his work and goes off. Various organizations, Government Departments PSUs and private sector also maintain a panel
of all these service providers or bring out tenders and allot the jobs. Varied  criteria are fixed for the allotment of work like seniority, merits and claims of the service provider, Staff  of the service providers, no. of years experience in the job, technical competence besides also some negative points to eliminate rush and encourage change of service providers like Minimum Income of the service provider and the cooling period after a specified duration of continuity of work


In all these the scope of employment generation is huge. In my opinion if some weightage points are given to the persons with disabilities (PWDs) and by the eliminating clauses removed without compromising on the quality, seniority, merits and costs of the job it can make a difference in their life in the following ways

1)     As PWDs cannot run about the work it will save them from some heat of the market forces while retaining the warmth

1)     It will encourage PWDS to self employment thereby raising their self esteem

2)     It will not lead to complacency as the job/ work guarantee is not there

3)      It will not bring out anti quota or anti reservation demonstrations and brood unfairness in the minds of able bodied

3)     It will encourage self development of the business by PWDs to bring up and safeguard their status
4)     It will provide  PWDs with continuous flow of work     

5)         PWDs will be able to coordinate take help and even employ staff to compensate for their deformity

I solicit you valuable views on this topic




AJAY CHAWLA

[Adverts]

[Vic]

Hello Ajay,

We, during yesterday's review meeting, did recommend that 'Inclusion be a criteria for all public spending' i.e. government must only authorise future projects, funding schemes (& infact anything that involves spending taxpayers money) that incorporate principles of inclusion.

I agree with everything you have said. Infact, most government offices believe that once the job has been outsourced/ sub-contracted then they have washed their hands off their obligations such as those under the PWD act, Health & Safety act, etc. Whereas, the way I see it, the sub-contracted organisation (or individual) itself is an employee (short-term/ part-time/ contract-based, etc) of the government and the government is, therefore, obliged to apply the provisions of various applicable acts when short-listing & selecting these people/ organisations. Moreover, it can be argued that it is also government's resposibility to ensure that the sub-contracted organisation/ individual will follow the same principles (eg non-discrimination) while carrying out governmen't duties & this can be very easily done by making this a condition of all such tenders and contracts ---- unfortunately, Im yet to come across anything that spells this out explicitly ---- so it is definately a good point worth adding in the next round of public consultation of the PWD Act (there is another round due before any of the ammendments are finalised).

Regards,

_________________
Vikas

AccessAbility

Hello Ajay,

We, during yesterday's review meeting, did recommend that 'Inclusion be a criteria for all public spending' i.e. government must only authorise future projects, funding schemes (& infact anything that involves spending taxpayers money) that incorporate principles of inclusion.

I agree with everything you have said. Infact, most government offices believe that once the job has been outsourced/ sub-contracted then they have washed their hands off their obligations such as those under the PWD act, Health & Safety act, etc. Whereas, the way I see it, the sub-contracted organisation (or individual) itself is an employee (short-term/ part-time/ contract-based, etc) of the government and the government is, therefore, obliged to apply the provisions of various applicable acts when short-listing & selecting these people/ organisations. Moreover, it can be argued that it is also government's resposibility to ensure that the sub-contracted organisation/ individual will follow the same principles (eg non-discrimination) while carrying out governmen't duties & this can be very easily done by making this a condition of all such tenders and contracts ---- unfortunately, Im yet to come across anything that spells this out explicitly ---- so it is definately a good point worth adding in the next round of public consultation of the PWD Act (there is another round due before any of the ammendments are finalised).

Regards,

_________________
Vikas

AccessAbility

[Dsamant]

Thanks for raising this topic Mr. Chawla. Vikas, I would agree with you that this needs to be documented explicitly.

Does anyone have any knowledge of similar obligations with respect to other minority/protected groups? For example, does the government ensure that their obligations towards people from schedules castes/schedules tribes are mets by contractors?

This could go under the Employment section of the amended PWD Act as well. It would be useful to develop a framework for judging the application of inclusive practices and then mandating that contract awardees fulfill those requirements.

Deepti

Thanks for raising this topic Mr. Chawla. Vikas, I would agree with you that this needs to be documented explicitly.

Does anyone have any knowledge of similar obligations with respect to other minority/protected groups? For example, does the government ensure that their obligations towards people from schedules castes/schedules tribes are mets by contractors?

This could go under the Employment section of the amended PWD Act as well. It would be useful to develop a framework for judging the application of inclusive practices and then mandating that contract awardees fulfill those requirements.

Deepti