Over 100 disabled soldiers trained in business skills at the Divyang Skill Development Centre

The Divyang Skill Development Centre was started by the government last year to train soldiers physically disabled on duty in skills like gardening and mobile repairing to help develop their business skills.

The centre is supported by the Border Security Force and was started to teach skills to injured paramilitary troopers hurt badly to the extent that they were left physically disabled. So far 113 physically disabled troopers have been trained.

These include 92 troopers of BSF, 13 from the Indo-Border Tibetan police, three from Central Industrial Security Force and five from Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). They suffer from amputation, trauma and vision problems.

The centre first started off by teaching skills for office jobs like data entry as well as the roles of radio and exchange operators. This was expanded in case soldiers would prefer to opt for voluntary retirement.

Three batches of paramilitary troopers have graduated from the centre after the eight-week training so far. The course has now been extended to 16 months.

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