Tamilarasan Murugesan, who has been unemployed for the past five years, is happy now.
Thanks to the job that he has now in quality control in a private company at Papparambakkam in Tiruvallur. He is one of the 139 persons with disabilities (PwDs), who have been placed in jobs by Tiruvallur district’s counselling centre.
“I had a job till mid-2016. After that the project got over and despite several tries, I did not get a job due to my disability. It is a birth defect and I walk with a limp. This job also pays better and it is closer to my home. I travel only about 20 minutes to work. Earlier, I had to travel to the city, change two trains and an auto for work. I am comfortable with this job and my office treats me well,” he said.
Not just placements, the centre also helps PwDs obtain loans. “At present around 50 applications for loans are in different stages with three government agencies. We conduct camps every month to provide self employment opportunities for PwDs,” said Collector Alby John Verghese.
P. Suresh, 41, who has a locomotor disability, recently received an infusion of ₹5 lakh for his shop that sells pesticides. “I had very limited stock earlier and could not serve many customers. But thanks to the centre and the non-governmental organisation We Are The Voice, which man it, I have enough capital to provide all the brands that farmers need. I am looking to get organic variants too, but will have to educate the farmers first,” he said.
N. Prabhu, senior executive (recruitment) at Innovserve Pvt. Ltd, which has provided employment to 29 PwDs so far, said they worked as well as others. We have interpreters and identified certain kinds of jobs for them. The company does packing, scanning and sorting of parcels for a larger company,” he said. The company is now looking to recruit a batch of dwarfs, said R. Ashok Kumar, interpreter.
The district has around 27,000 PwDs and the centre, located inside the Collectorate, has three areas of focus. “We aim to locate job opportunities for these people, help them obtain loans and provide skill development. When it comes to jobs, we identify companies, sensitise them to the needs of PwDs and follow up regularly.
Many companies are happy to employ more PwDs,” said M. Mugilan, profiling officer at the centre, which was started in August 2021.
