BENGALURU: The Udyoga Mela job fair held in the city on Saturday, witnessed a strong response with 100 companies and 4470 candidates attending the event. The two-day fair which was organised by the state government, was inaugurated by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy along with revenue minister R V Deshpande and MLA Uday Garudachar. 254 differently-abled candidates attended the fair, along with four companies specifically looking for such candidates.
Sunitha Bai, a 36-year-old crippled widow, who longs to support her family through the fair. “I have been advised to take a three-month training course as a receptionist. This will be my first job if I get in,” she says, adding that she was looking for job she did not have to stand for long hours as she was crippled.
Forty-two-year-old Nusrath was a former nursery school teacher and worked as a tailor before deciding to attend the fair. “Any job is fine with me. Whether it is a helper, or receptionist at a hospital, I will be still be happy,” she said.Founder of Vindhya e-infomedia Pvt Ltd, Pavithra Y S, says that 65 per cent of the company’s employees are differently-abled and they were focused on looking for candidates with a minimum of grade 10 qualification.
“We feel that differently-abled people are deprived of opportunities and we wanted to make them feel that they are no less than others,” she said. She added that their employees include those with physical disabilities such as hearing and visual impairment, cerebral palsy, autism and so on.
Recruiters from multiple industries like Dairy, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality, Automobile etc., had attended the fair with over 100-300 vacancies in each company.