City’s Jasmer Saini receives Helen Keller award

Syed Ali Ahmed

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Tribune News Service 

New Delhi, December 2 

Jasmer Sing Saini, professor in Chandigarh-based National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research (NITTTR), received the prestigious Helen Keller award here today in a function for his achievement of working for disabled persons. 

He was one of the six persons who were honoured with the award in a function organised by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled. Besides him, other awardees are Cegeo Thekkel, Deepa Narasimhan, Pratik Rajiv Jindal, Pankajam Sridevi, Prof Sanjeev Arjunrao Sonawane, Apart from this six private companies – Accenture Services Private Limited, Aegis Limited, Cisco Systems India Private Limited, DELL EMC, State Bank of India, Synchrony Financial India – were also honoured with the award. 

Saini, who is an academician by profession entered in the world of working for disabled persons when his son, Saurabh Saini, was declared hundred per cent deaf just after one-and-half-year of his birth in 1986. However, now Saurabh teaches Fine Art in a government school in Haryana. While he was trying to find ways for working disabled persons, the government of India had passed an act, Persons with Disability Act 1995 and in 1999 the Union Ministry Human Resource Development had approved a scheme for integrating persons with disability in technical and vocational education to provide equal opportunity to disabled in jobs. He worked for the scheme in Chandigarh and had fought for jobs for disabled.  The credit goes to him for convincing the authorities concerned for making 25 seats reserved for disabled in 50 polytechnics across the country and three to six months vocational programme training to them. In 2009 Jasmer had contacted Confederation of Indian Industry in Chandigarh for getting job opportunities for disabled in corporate sector. With his efforts in 2010 Tech Mahendra had selected 10-12 disabled in the company. Later IBM and TATA also offered jobs to them.  With his efforts, in 2010 first job fair for disabled was organised in his college in Sector 26, Chandigarh and recent was organised in June this year where 22 companies turned up and selected 102 persons. Till now 412 disabled persons have got job through fair organised in NITTTR.