Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is most friendly to disabled
Chennai: For Leelavati, 50, an executive with the accounts section, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is less a workplace and more a second home, the infrastructure for herself and 32 other differently abled employees being conducive to their overall well being.
The 11-storey building in which the CMDA is housed has six lifts and wheelchair-friendly ramps at all its entrances, the differently abled employees being permitted inside with their vehicles in tow. Leeelavati was, until 1987, working as a volunteer with the NSS, earning Rs 350, of which Rs 250 would go on auto fare, she says. Speaking fluent English, she went to Meenakshi College where she did a postgraduate degree in history.
“This job has been a blessing as I alone among my four siblings have a government job,” she says. Speaking of the work atmosphere at the CMDA, she says they did their work diligently and people were very forthcoming if they ever needed any help.
Thulasingham N, who is three years away from retirement, pursued a degree in history before getting a job with the CMDA in 1986 through the employment exchange. With no plans in mind as yet for working after retirement, he points out that his colleagues at the CMDA “are social, and therefore, we are closely knit across departments.”
According to senior officers at the CMDA, all 33 differently abled employees had been set on par with other employees. A top official adds, “We allow them to join in all the departments, including the Enforcement Wing, where they ere supposed to make site visits and hardly has anyone not complied.”
Like any other government department, the CMDA too has 3 per cent reservation for differently abled people. Leelavati and Thulasingham urge other differently abled youngsters to seek out these opportunities and avail of them.
