The 11th NCPEDP – Mphasis Universal Design Awards 2020 awards by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) have been conferred to 22 individuals and organisations in recognition of their work towards promoting accessibility for Persons with Disabilities.
Congratulating the awardees, in a virtual ceremony, the chief guest of the ceremony, Shakuntala D Gamlin, secretary, department of empowerment of PwDs said: “Accessibility issues are challenging to the policymakers, engineers, governments, corporates, innovators and inventors but we should not tire from going incrementally towards perfecting and trying to replicate the designs and the accessibility issues that can finally take us towards a professed goal of universal accessibility. Without accessibility, inclusivity cannot become a reality.”
“What we are doing today may be looked at from the narrow perspective and it’s for particular category of disability, but looking from perspective of universal accessibility and inclusivity, you will find that, it has a wide and deep inclusive and empowerment not only for the disabled but the aged, the women, pregnant women, children, and many others and finally the universal inclusivity in terms of those who may have been left behind due to absence of technology and lack of proper accessible tools,” she added.
While in category A, awards were given to PwDs who designed consumer products with the aid of assistive technology in their personal and professional capacity like — Dr. Vikrant Sirohi, who has extensively put up ramps, reserved parking as well as labour room expansion at the primary health centres; Ravindra Rambhan Singh whose organisation myUDAAN developed V GO that converts any manual wheelchair into a motorised one, category B saw activists who work for the cause of the disabled. This included computer engineer Adarsh Hasija who has developed several apps for people with disabilities, and Naveen Kumar M has designed a multipurpose, light-weight wheelchair.
Arman Ali, executive director, NCPEDP pointed out that the pandemic had taught everyone the importance of accessibility as a fundamental right. “Access to information is particularly important as people with or without disabilities navigated through the new normal in today’s times,” he was quoted as saying in a media release.
