BENGALURU: Ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, disabled people, to a large extent, remain invisible when it comes to policymaking or market research.
While the 2011 national census posited 2.68 crores of Indians to be disabled, recent data from EnAble India – a Bengaluru-based organisation working towards empowering persons with disabilities (PwDs) – shows that around 300 million of India’s population are disabled, and left out of the consumer base.
According to founder of EnAble India Shanti Raghavan, this demographic is one with the spending power of Rs 13 lakh crore. This figure could be, however, misleading, because due to socioeconomic marginalisation, there lies a strong correlation between disability and poverty.
“According to many studies, including one conducted by the World Bank, persons with disabilities are most likely to become poor and the poor are most likely to become disabled. About 20% of the poorest of the poor are persons with disabilities.
These facts are true to India also: about 81% of persons with disabilities in India are below the poverty line, about 69% of persons with disabilities live in rural parts of India. Nearly 81% of persons with disabilities live below the poverty line,” says Dr. Mahantesh GK, founder of Samarthanam, a non-governmental trust for the disabled.
Raghavan stresses that as soon as a person is found to be disabled, they cease to occupy the position of a customer. Dr. Mahantesh adds that the presumed financial weakness is taken as a given. “There is a myth that the persons with disabilities cannot afford products and they do not have the adequate purchasing power,” he says.
Both agree that from a manufacturing point of view, it would be fairly easy to take PwDs into account, which makes their exclusion all the more baffling. “It is a very easy and simple task. Only 1% of the total production cost is required to make them disability-friendly, but the [lack of] sensitivity matters a lot,” says Dr. Mahantesh.
Raghavan adds, “In many cases, accessibility is a matter of simple, thoughtful tweaks: like ramps instead of/alongside stairs, screen-reader compatibility instead of visual-only UI, flexible work-hours or sign-language support instead of rigid ‘one-size-fits-all’.”