A call-centre with a difference

By Monica Chadha, BBC News, Mumbai

Nikita Patil, 23, works in a call centre, just like thousands of other Indian youngsters who have found jobs thanks to a booming outsourcing industry.

What customers will not guess while talking to her is that she is blind. The call centre she works for is meant for the "visually challenged only".

The centre, Drishti, is an initiative of the National Association for the Blind.

The director of the employment department at the NAB, Pallavi Kadam, says the outsourcing boom has opened up numerous options for the blind. "I would say visually impaired candidates have very good memory, they have good listening and speaking skills, so that is marketable. The blind are already doing jobs such as medical transcription, and legal and business transcription," she says.

The association first tried out the experiment in the southern city of Bangalore. After a successful run there, it opened the small centre in Mumbai.

Via Talk-Desi