Antar Drishti | 08 Apr 2025
Why in News?
On 7th April 2025, the National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (Divyangjan), Dehradun, and the National Association for the Blind (NAB), New Delhi, jointly inaugurated ‘Antar Drishti’.
Key Points
- Objective and Features:
- ‘Antar Drishti’ is designed as a unique sensory dark room to simulate the daily experiences of persons with visual impairments.
- The facility enables sighted individuals to engage in activities in complete darkness, thereby promoting empathy and understanding of the challenges faced by persons with blindness or low vision.
- The initiative aims to foster inclusion by bridging the perceptual gap between the general public and the lived experiences of visually impaired individuals.
- Implementation of the ‘Enable Inclusion’ App:
- Through this partnership, NIEPVD will implement the ‘Enable Inclusion’ App developed by Amar Seva Sangam for early detection, intervention, and tracking of children with developmental disabilities.
- NIEPVD will integrate its specialization in visual disabilities to enhance the app’s accessibility and responsiveness for users with visual impairments.
- The app will provide personalized support through tele-counseling, rehabilitation planning, and early intervention, advancing DEPwD’s vision of accessible, inclusive, and tech-driven empowerment for persons with disabilities across India.
NIEPVD
- The National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Impairment (NIEPVD), under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), has been working since 1943 for the education, training, rehabilitation, and empowerment of the visually impaired.
- It established a Regional Centre in Chennai in 1988 for serving the Southern Region, and coordinates four CRCs at Sundernagar (H.P.), Gorakhpur (U.P.), and Jaipur (Rajasthan) to provide rehabilitation and skill development services for persons with disabilities.
Other Initiatives for Persons with Disability
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016:
- It aims to protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities (PwDs).
- It aims to give effect to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which India ratified in 2007.
- A person with a benchmark disability is defined as someone with at least 40% of a specified disability.
- Unique Disability Identification Portal:
- The project is being implemented with a view of creating a National Database for persons with disabilities (PwDs), and to issue a Unique Disability Identity Card to each PwDs.
- DeenDayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS):
- DDRS is a Central Sector Scheme of Government of India which has been implemented since 1999 for providing financial assistance to NGOs working for education and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities.
- National Fellowship for Students with Disabilities:
- It aims to increase opportunities for students with disabilities for pursuing higher education and grants 200 fellowships per year to students with disabilities.