Thaawarchand Gehlot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Beta version of ‘Divyang Sarathi’—The accessible and comprehensive mobile application for easy dissemination of information to ‘Divyangjans’ here today. Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Minister of State for Social justice and Empowerment, Smt. Latha Krishna Rao, Secretary, M/o SJ&E and senior officers of M/o SJ&E were present.Speaking on the occasion, Shri Gehlot said that this mobile application is bound to empower the ‘Divyangjans’ by providing easier and convenient access of information to them as they can now understand all details pertaining to the schemes, scholarships, statutes, institutional support systems and other relevant and crucial information at the click of a button.This mobile application aims at providing all relevant information pertaining to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, including its various acts, rules, regulations and guidelines, schemes, information about the various outreach institutions, employment opportunities, and the disability market in an accessible format. This application has been developed by the two Assistant Secretaries (Shri Anunaya Jha and Smt. B. Susheela) in the DEPwD.
According to the Census 2011, there are over 2.68 crore ‘Divyangjans’ in India which constitute more than 2.2% of the population. The mobile application ‘Divyang Sarathi’ is compliant with the principles of UNCRPD for Universal Access and the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. The Act mandates that all information to be made available in an accessible form. The application is also an integral part of the ICT component of the Accessible India Campaign launched by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 3rd December, 2015.The unique features of the mobile application ‘Divyang Sarathi’ are its audio notes (text-to-voice conversion software) embedded in the application which converts the written information into an audio file as well as the adjustable font size which can be altered as per the user’s requirement. The mobile application will certainly have a wide outreach as it has been developed bilingually i.e., the information is available in Hindi as well as English. The application has been so developed that once downloaded, it can be accessed by any Android smartphone User who may or may not have access to the internet. The mobile app will be available for download on Google Playstore.