Equal Opportunity Cell - Somaiya Vidyavihar

Introduction

About EQC

Functions

Committee

Facilities

Publications

About Equal Opportunity Cell

As per the UGC Guidelines for Equitable Opportunity to the Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs) in HETs (February 2023), all 1-TETs shall set up Equal Opportunity Cell to ensure opportunities for inclusive, equal and quality higher education to the SEDGs students. The Equal Opportunity Cell within every HEIs shall protect the constitutionally guaranteed rights, dignity, safety, and security of all individuals belonging to the SEDGs and also ensure them equalizing access and opportunities to pursue higher education with the help of the existing statutory bodies such as SC/ST Cell and OBC Cell.

Relatable links

Objectives of Equal Opportunity Cell:

To protect all the constitutional rights of the SEDGs students.
To ensure that the HEIs are inclusive, safe, and secure for the SEDGs students.
To provide socio-emotional and academic support and mentoring for the students belonging to the SEDGs through proper counselling and mentoring programmes.
To ensure proper implementation and monitoring of bridge courses designed by the HEIs to benefit SEDGs students.
To ensure implementation of all such programmes designed and developed by HEIs to increase the participation of SEDGs students in academic activities.
To ensure implementation of all policies, including reservation policies and various schemes, programmes, and guidelines of the Govt. of India.
To ensure that the HEIs develop appropriate outreach programmes to help the SEDGs students from Special Education Zones (SEZs) to avail the various opportunities of educational/academic programmes of HEIs.
Ensure proper implementation of all laws against discrimination and atrocities against the SCs and STs.
To circulate, publicize, facilitate, and monitor the implementation of the UGC guidelines and instructions issued from time to time in favour of SEDGs.
To redress the grievances and complaints of the SEDGs students within 15 days through a Grievances Redressal Committee (GRC) without compromising the safety and dignity of the complainant.

To co-ordinate with other existing cells and statutory bodies of the HEIs and enable implementation of the existing schemes and provisions, including scholarships and fellowships of the Govt. of India and respective States.
To ensure the implementation of bridge courses, earn-while-learn schemes, and outreach • programmes designed and developed by HEIs for SEDGs.
To provide socio-economic, academic, and emotional support and mentoring for such students through proper counselling and mentoring programmes.
To ensure sensitization of faculty, staff, counsellors, and students on the gender-identity issue and their inclusion in all aspects of the HEIs, including making curricula gender and ability inclusive.
To explore and generate funds from various sources like Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and Alumni to provide more financial assistance and scholarships to SEDGs to mitigate opportunity costs and fees for pursuing higher education.
Coordinate with the internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) to raise awareness about the implementation of various policies for inclusive and equitable quality higher education.
To work as a 'Single Window" for students belonging to SEDGs for their grievances, basic needs, amenities, facilities, welfare measures, and scholarships and fellowships.
To upload guidelines, facilities, welfare, and safety measures on HEI's portal and maintain such records to review and monitor amenities and basic facilities for a safe and secure environment for SEDGs.
To circulate, publicize, and facilitate existing welfare schemes like - Remedial, NET, entry into services, and residential Coaching for SC/ST/OBC (non-creamy layer), Minority Community, and PwD Students.
To establish a team of counsellors, social workers, and faculty members to provide emotional and social support to SEDGs to adapt to the environment of the HEI.
To focus on overall personality and skill development, including professional and soft skills, so as to ensure enhancing the student employability.
To organize periodic meetings and to monitor the progress of various schemes and all the HEIs may prepare the database.
To assess the needs of SEDGs and make necessary recommendations to the authorities of the institutions.
To make faculty, staff, students, and serve professionals aware of facilities available for SEDGs.
To sensitize all the students to bring an attitudinal change towards SEDGs. Students should accept and involve SEDGs in curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities in the HEIs.
To hold regular meetings with SEDG students to check their grievances and also meet with management/authorities of HEIs to facilitate discussion of the grievances of SEDG students and maintain the confidentiality of deliberations and data.
To review, monitor, and ensure disposal of all grievances within 15 days.

Office Order of Re-constitution of University (EOC)

Dr. Prasanna Shete

Chairperson

Dr. Hindurao Waydande

Member

Dr. Jyoti Joglekar

Member

Dr. Ramesh Lekurwale

Member

Dr. Manisha Gawade

Member

Dr. Shiji Lyndon

Member

Dr. Seema Sambrani

Member

Dr. Nitin Khanvilkar

Member

Prof. Gautam More

Member

Bro. Samarth Lad

Member

Dr. Maushmi Kumar

Member

Dr. Dnyaneshwar Magar

Member Secretary

Challenges faced by differently abled individuals

Non-inclusive development; inaccessible environment .
Persons with disabilities (PwDs) meet barriers of all types

JAWS Screen Reader

Dictaphone

Screen Magnifier

Assistive Technology Development @ Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai

1. Real-time Captioning and Transcribing tool for Hearing Impaired

Text-it-Loud! Android App https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kjsce.textitloud

2. Chat-it-Loud!

Voice to Indian Sign Language Translator : https://english-voice-to-isl.herokuapp.com/

Voice to Indian Sign Language Translator

https://english-voice-to-isl.herokuapp.com/

Ramp/Rails

Physical Facilities (Washroom)

https://english-voice-to-isl.herokuapp.com/

Lift with Braille Panel

Chat-It-Loud!: Real-Time Transcribing App for Communication for Hearing-Impaired, in ICT with Intelligent Applications, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol. 248, pp 9-14, Springer Dec 2021.
Voice to Indian Sign Language Translator, in The 3rd Assistive Technology Conference EMPOWER 2021, Oct 28-30, 2021, IIIT Bangalore.
Text-it-Loud!: Real-time Captioning and Transcribing App for Inclusive Teaching-Learning of Hearing impaired, in IEEE Tenth International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E), 2019, Dec 9-11, 2019, pp. 264-265.
Enhanced UI Automator Viewer with improved Android accessibility evaluation features, in IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Dynamic Optimization Techniques (ICACDOT), Sep 9, 2016, pp. 977-983.
Smart Stick for Blind using Arduino, Ultrasonic Sensor and Android, International Journal of Engineering Science, Vol. 7- Issue 4, Apr 2017, pp. 10929- 10933.
Convoy: An Android App for Visually Challenged People, International Journal of Computer Applications Vol. 141 – No.6, May 2016, pp. 0975–8887.