EXTENSION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMMES:

India is a vast country with 75% of its population living in rural area and therefore, reaching out the services in rural areas is considered as an effective means to enable the people to access to the rehabilitation services. Accordingly, NIMH has given the due importance for extension and outreach programmes. Due to those endeavours, many organisations have taken birth in the rural side of the country.

NIMH has a network of 9 District Disability Rehabilitation Centres, one Composite Regional Centre at Bhopal. Through these extension and outreach programmes, the scope of rendering service has been enlarged from the single disability of mental retardation to all disabilities.

Composite rehabilitation camps are conducted in the rural areas, in which specialists in different fields of disability are involved in the identification, assessment and providing rehabilitation services. Whenever necessary, assistive devices namely, tricycles, calipers, crutches, artificial limbs, hearing aids, braile slates, white canes, catract operations with IOL, teaching learning materials are provided to the persons with disabilities. Each rehabilitation camp is preceded by giving orientation to the grassroot workers (Anganwadi workers) to detect the persons with disability and bring them to the camp for assessment.