PEARL ACADEMY OF FASHION

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

HEARING IMPAIRED: EMPLOYED AS SEWING OPERATORS IN THE APPAREL MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY (DELHI/NCR)

SUBMITTED BY

SAURABH CHADHA (2007-2011)

SUBMITTED TO

Ms. NANDITA ABRAHAM

MENTORED BY

Ms. REKHA DAR

Final Dissertation Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the B.A. (Hons.) Degree in Fashion Merchandising and Production MAY 2011

Purpose of Study
This project is an extension of my initial project in the previous semester which dealt with mapping employment for the hearing impaired and visually impaired in the Indian apparel manufacturing industry. Learning possible employment for hearing impaired, the dissertation looks at training them in one field (sewing) and validating their output levels to the industry norms. This study is to show their possible participation as sewing operators, creating possible employments, fair opportunities, and a sense of awareness with a short outreach program.

ii

Acknowledgement
Project of this magnitude can only be completed with the guidance, assistance and support of numerous individuals. First, I would like to extend my appreciation to my dissertation committee members including my mentor, Prof. Rekha Dar, for her wisdom, leadership & approachability and Prof. Nandita Abraham for her patience, expertise, affection, criticism & indulgence. My sincere appreciation for Prof. Mehboob Anwer, without his precious time, this project could have never taken place. Heartfelt appreciation is also extended to Prof. Preeti Deewan, for motivating me throughout my academic career. I am grateful to Ms. Ruma Roka, Ms. Kitty Gupta and Ms. Preeti Dhingra to believe in me and permit me to work with her students and train them for my research .They gave all the support and helped in special communication techniques to successfully complete my experiment. I am indebted to Nahid Sultani, Deepak Singh and Ovaish Ahmed for their participation and warmth throughout the 6 weeks of training. Sincere appreciation is also extended to Alumni Association for funding this academic pursuit, Prof. Sunita Gupta for her research expertise, Prof. Shazia Amanat for the boost, Prof. Mark Parker for his photography expertise, Prof. Ramneek Majithia for her insight in campaign design process, Prof. Akhilesh Sarukhia and Mr. Nikhil Arora for their permission to use the Alumni meet to showcase my work. Additionally, I would like to thank my friends at Meeting the Challenge for their ongoing support and patience during my academic pursuits. In particular, I am indebted to Tanya Mehrotra, Sneha Kapoor, Tripti Aggarwal, Sugandha Handa, Shivika Chanda, Angad Brar & Sarthak Gaur for their insight, assistance in laborious cutting of innumerable pieces, design sensibilities, becoming on call photographers and supervising experiments in my absence. A sincere thank you is owed to my father & sister, for their support when I needed it most. Also, I give endless gratitude to my mother, for her support in sleepless nights and for instilling in me a lifelong commitment to learning and the pursuit of academic achievement.

iii

Declaration
I hereby declare that the following work is my original creation. All data, pictures and information has been collected solely by me. All the data that has been previously published and written by someone earlier has been dutifully referenced and used. I also declare that intellectual content of this file is the product of my own work and any contribution made by faculties at Pearl Academy of Fashion has been fully acknowledged.

Saurabh Chadha, Fashion Merchandising and Production Pearl Academy of Fashion

iv

Certificate of Originality
This is to certify that this Dissertation Project on Hearing Impaired: Employed as sewing operators in the apparel manufacturing industry (Delhi/NCR) is a bona fide work undertaken by Saurabh Chadha towards fulfillment of the requirement for the honor of under graduate degree in Fashion Merchandising and Production (Level 3) at Pearl Academy of Fashion.

Nandita Abraham, Head of Department, Business and Technology, Pearl Academy of Fashion

Rekha Dar, Mentor, Business and Technology, Pearl Academy of Fashion

Table of contents
S. No. A B C D E 1. Page No. ii iii iv v ix 1-3 1 2 2 2 3 4-20 4-6 5 5 6-7 6 7

Particular Purpose of Study Acknowledgement Declaration Certificate of originality Executive summary Introduction 1.1. Statement of problem 1.2. Purpose 1.3. Significance 1.4. Aim 1.5. Research Objectives

2.

Literature Review 2.1. Hearing impairment, its types and causes 2.1.1.Types of hearing impairment 2.1.2.Causes of hearing impairment 2.2. Hearing impaired profile in India 2.2.1.Socio economic profile 2.2.2.Age of onset of disability 2.3. Employability of hearing impaired in the Delhi & NCR apparel manufacturing industry 2.3.1.Existing employment 2.3.2.Barriers to employment 2.3.2.1. 2.3.2.2. 2.3.2.3. 2.3.2.4. 2.3.2.5. Employers mindsets Hearing impairers mindsets Mindsets of co-workers Other issues faced by the deaf Lack of sensitization 7-18 8 8 9 10 11 11 13 15

2.3.3.Benefits from employment

vi

2.3.3.1. 2.3.3.2.

Monetary benefits Other benefits

16 17 19-20 19 20 21-29 20 24 27 30-43 30 35 39 44-48 44 44 45 46 47 48 49-52 49 49 50 51 51 52 53 54-59

2.4. Key issues: Apparel manufacturing firms 2.4.1.Labour turnover 2.4.2.Labour productivity 3. Research methods 3.1. Research objective 1 3.2. Research objective 2 3.3. Research objective 3 4. Result and discussions 4.1. Research objective 1 4.2. Research objective 2 4.3. Research objective 3 5. Conclusion 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Summary of result and discussions 5.3. Recommendation on further studies 5.4. Recommendation from conclusions 5.5. Limitations 5.6. Critical review 6. Annexure 6.1. Definition of terms used in research methods 6.2. Definition of different scale enterprise 6.3. Detailed operator grading system 6.4. Interactive documentation 6.5. Actual class distribution 6.6. Shahis output report 7. 8. Acronyms and Abbreviations Bibliography and references

vii

List of Illustrations
Page no. Graph 1 Educational attainment for hearing impaired Table 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Classification of Hearing Impairment Research objective 1: Research method Research objective 2: Research method Research objective 3: Research method Module specification Planned class distribution Operator particulars Competitor output study Hearing impaired output study Hearing tailors output Hearing impaired tailors output Figures 1 2 3 4 5 Factors affecting productivity Research objective 2(ii) Direct causal Operator grading system Model A Model B 19 26 30 42 43 4 21 24 27 32 33 36 37 38 39 39 7

Illustration Title

viii

Executive summary
India has a large disabled population facing unemployment. Amongst all the disabilities, Deafness is one of the highest in number, largely ignored and for which many viable employments are not available. An exhaustive study was conducted on skill study of entry level jobs in the Delhi/ NCR apparel manufacturing industry. It is evident that there is demand for dedicated skilled sewing workers in the apparel sector. And the skill training can make a hearing impaired employable. This study indicates the current issues faced with present labour like retention and productivity could partly be tackled with employing hearing impaired as workers in an apparel manufacturing unit. This research aimed to - a) Create a knowledge base for the training of hearing impaired sewing operators, b)Train three hearing impaired as sewing operators and compare with the hearing sewing operators to determine the difference and possibility of employment and c) design and initiate an outreach program to sensitize possible audience about disability and employment. Therefore, the aim is to find out the viability of hearing impaired as sewing operators in the Indian apparel manufacturing industry. The findings are based on 36 hours of sewing training, 3 days of output experiment and a campaign executed through a month. Thus, indicate that with specially structured training, hearing impaired sewing operators can work and meet required performance of at the industry entry level productivity. Also noticed is the massive lack of disability awareness and ignored community which needs empowerment through sensitization programs. And by hiring disabled sewing operators organizations may add ethical value to their business benefiting from the CSR activity while improving their brand image. This paper would be of interest to organizations in the apparel industry exploring ways to introduce CSR practices. Additionally, it could serve as an exemplar for other industries as well. The specially structured training methodology could be further scaled up and replicated providing direct solutions to the hearing impaired and indirect solutions to present labour problems.

ix