Inclusive India Initiative

It was launched in 2017 with the objective of including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the mainstream (access to all important aspects of social life like education, employment and community); this scheme is all about changing attitudes.

• Focus Areas: The three core focus areas of Inclusive India Initiative are - Inclusive Education, Inclusive Employment, and Inclusive Community Life.
• Nodal Agency: National Trust, a statutory body under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the nodal agency for the initiative.

Challenges

• Negative attitudes of teachers and community.
• Scarcity of skilled human and material resources. (As per an on-field survey by an NGO, it was found that 70% of teachers have not received training in special education nor had any experience teaching students with disabilities.)
• Infrastructure being unfriendly.

Solutions

• The government must strive for synchronization and coordination amongst various schemes and policies meant for the welfare of PwDs like linking Sugamya Bharat with Inclusive India campaign to make them more effective.
• Moving away from ‘charity based approach’ to ‘right based approach’.
• A well planned initiative must be backed with effective implementation to ensure its success, same follows for Inclusive India Initiative.