Government launches the ‘Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index’ - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 7, 2016
The Government has recently launched the Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index to benchmark and evaluate readiness of various stakeholders for making the workplace accessible for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). The index is an average of two sub-indices, the Inclusiveness Sub-Index and the Accessibility Sub-Index.
Government of India recently launched the ‘Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index’ as a part of the ‘Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan’. The Index was prepared in collaboration with The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The ‘Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index’ helps the industries and corporates to participate in the Accessible India Campaign (AIC) by voluntarily evaluating their readiness for making the workplace accessible for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs)
Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index
Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is a nationwide campaign for achieving universal accessibility for PwDs and to create an enabling and barrier free environment. The campaign focuses on three verticals: Built Environment; Public Transportation and Information & Communication Technologies.
The index will measure inclusiveness and accessibility of PwDs across different kinds of organisations. The composite index is split into two independent sub-indices that separately measure inclusiveness, and accessibility (I&A). A toolkit has been developed that helps in measuring these indices. The government has made it clear that these indices are not a substitute for the legal obligations that exist under national or international regulatory regimes. The indices are aimed at assessing the current stage of inclusiveness and accessibility of PwDs.
Inclusiveness Sub-Index
This has three major components namely
There are sub components for each of the component. Each of the sub components is rated on a scale of 0 to 4. The ratings mean the following
0-1: Needs Significant Improvement
Up to 2: Average
Up to 3: Good
Up to 4: Excellent
Accessibility Sub –Index
This also has three components namely
Proposed Methodology
The methodology for determining the position of an organisation on the inclusiveness and accessibility index is as follows,
Rating each component and their sub-component is based on three dimensions:
The toolkit has a detailed questionnaire that will help with arriving at these ratings.The government feels that the recognition of the Index by the Corporate Sector and public sector organisations will benefit them immensely by
What about Government Infrastructure?
The government has fixed the following targets under this campaign with respect to its buildings, transport agencies and websites.
The government has also enrolled 18 access auditors to lead the access audits across the country.  These auditors will audit 1124 public buildings in 32 different cities.
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