India Inc’s diversity drive slow in including PwDs
PwDs) in the workforce, corporate India still has a long road ahead.
As per an analysis of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)-mandated Business Responsibility and Sustainability reports filed by 1,062 listed companies for 2022/2022-23, more than 87% of them said their workplaces were accessible to people with disabilities. However, only 0.6% of permanent workers they employed were PwDs.
Empower Your Corporate Journey with Strategic Skill Courses
Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM LucknowIIML Chief Operations Officer ProgrammeVisitIIM KozhikodeIIMK Chief Product Officer ProgrammeVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Chief Digital OfficerVisitData compiled for ET by primeinfobase.com showed that 38,989 of the 6.43 million permanent employees at these companies in 2022/2022-23 were PwDs. Around 45% of the companies didn’t have a single PwD employee; 146 companies had just one.
While many Indian companies have been making strides on the gender diversity front, experts said there are multiple reasons why the needle has barely moved on PwD representation. These include lack of proper accessibility, attitudinal barriers and a limited pool of candidates with the right qualifications who can be deployed immediately.
“Companies don’t want to invest in skilling, training, etc., they want quick fixes and therein lies a problem,” said Vineet Saraiwala, founder of Atypical Advantage, an inclusive livelihood platform which claims to have helped place more than 1,000 PwDs across 100 companies in the last three years. “A
