Niti Aayog plans policy to push local production of assistive devices

The government is working on policy intervention to promote mass manufacturing of assistive devices in India by incentivising the private sector to undertake R&D for such technology and scale up production while providing monetary support to persons with disability to avail assistive technology services to reduce the out-of-pocket payment.

NITI Aayog has started discussions with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), World Health Organisation (WHO) and stakeholder ministries to firm up the blueprint for a national integrated policy on assistive devices, a senior government official told ET. India has an estimated 30 million persons with disability as per the 2011 census and over 5% of the people aged 60 years and above have some form of disability.

Assistive technology (AT) includes any item, equipment, software programme or product system that is used to increase, maintain or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities (PWDs).

Besides this, ATs are also used to overcome the functional-loss related to senile changes such as a decrease in vision or hearing or locomotor disability in the human body and also in overcoming disabilities owing to intellectual or learning disabilities.