Tag Archives: Mohammed Asif Iqbal – PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Calcutta

Running with a vision: Mohammed Asif Iqbal’s life, an inspiring tale for many

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL:

Bouncing back from adversity with indomitable resilience and willpower, Asif Iqbal helps others with disabilities as he pushes the limits. Ejaz Kaiser shares his story.

Since 2021, Iqbal has run 10 km each on 12 different races.
Since 2021, Iqbal has run 10 km each on 12 different races.

Chhattisgarh :

A life well lived is a life worth talking about. With complete vision loss, Mohammed Asif Iqbal’s life can force anyone to rethink disability.

A Kolkata resident, who had a successful stint in Central government’s smart city projects for digital inclusion initiative at Nava Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Iqbal (46) had partial vision loss since birth due to a genetic disorder called retinal degeneration. By the time he turned 16, he had turned completely blind.


He moved to the United States and managed complete his high school and partial college education in Oregon, USA. Iqbal returned to India in 1995 to later become the first visually challenged commerce graduate of St Xavier’s College Kolkata and got his MBA in human resources from Symbiosis Institute, Pune.

Around six years back, he was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Having given a choice to either change his lifestyle or be on medicines all his life, Iqbal decided to lead a life worth living. “I thought my health shouldn’t be a hurdle towards my contribution to nation-building. Just the thought of doing something to ensure I remain healthy. I was overweight. I began visiting the playground and park with the help of friends. It was there the idea clicked to participate in marathons and began preparing for the race to build my confidence”, Iqbal said.

Running became a routine; starting from 100 metre, he increased the length slowly to 300 and later to a few kilometres with the support of volunteers. Gradually, he learnt navigation on his own.

“I was competing with myself to enhance my performance”, he added. Since 2021, Iqbal has run 10 km each on 12 different races and has also been recognised by former Indian cricket skipper master blaster Sachin Tendulkar for his brave initiative.

But his biggest moment came on December 18, 2022 when he accomplished TSK-25 km (15.53 miles) marathon run in Kolkata only through voice guidance. He was blind-folded and had zero physical touch or physical assistance from anyone. He set a record and entered into Asian Book of Records, as the first Indian Asian blind runner to complete a marathon in 3:32 hours with voice navigation support from Dibyendu Mondel and Prakash Singh who piloted his run.

“While I run on voice guidance (talking GPS) issued by fellow buddy runners who run at the same speed,  the mission of 25km marathon in Kolkata was well achieved,” Iqbal said.

He is also the recipient of a national award, West Bengal state role model award and the extraordinary citizen of Kolkata award among others.

During his career spanning over 15 years, he has designed and implemented social inclusion strategy for AADHAR enrollment, accessible income tax, and accessible telecom under Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) among others.

He is presently an associate director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India Ltd. In 2000, he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) for implementation of reservation quota in government-run universities including the IIMs and IITs.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Ejaz Kaiser, Express News Service / January 29th, 2023

Blindness beaten, now bureaucracy

Bagalpur, BIHAR / New Town, WEST BENGAL :

MAN ON A MISSION: Mohammed Asif Iqbal in his Sector V office. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya
MAN ON A MISSION: Mohammed Asif Iqbal in his Sector V office. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

New Town:

A 41-year-old man who didn’t let blindness come in the way of his achieving academic and career goals has now set his mind on fighting bureaucracy to make reserved parking for people with disabilities the norm in public places.

Mohammed Asif Iqbal, an associate director of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Calcutta, has been meeting whoever he thinks can be of help as part of a campaign he started two years ago and won’t give up on.

Asif had visited Mamata Banerjee’s residence in Kalighat in August last year, although he didn’t get to meet her. He left a letter addressed to the chief minister with a police officer in her security detail and is still waiting for a response.

A few months before that, Asif had met the Trinamul MP and Harvard professor Sugata Bose to give voice to what he feels is the right of every person with disability.

In a letter to the chief minister after Asif met him, Bose said the young man “makes a compelling case for dedicated handicapped parking in public places, as is the norm in most advanced cities and towns”.

Metro has a copy each of Asif’s letter to Mamata and the one in which Bose appears to back his initiative.

“Ramps are built to make a building or compound disabled-friendly. But dedicated parking slots sound like a foreign concept to most people. There are VIP parking slots everywhere, though,” Asif said.

The trigger for his mission was a visit to the headquarters of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation in April 2016. “I was to meet someone there and my driver was unable to find a place to park the vehicle anywhere nearby. I was forced to walk more than a kilometre through New Market to reach the civic headquarters. I realised that day what a big problem this is, more so for someone with a disability,” he recounted.

Asif was born in Bhagalpur, Bihar, with impaired vision that kept deteriorating as he grew. He lost his sight completely before he was 16. “I was then living with my uncle in the US, where people with blindness and other disabilities don’t usually face the problems that they would encounter in India,” he said.

It was after Asif returned to India after completing school in Oregano – he was in the US for around a decade – that he realised how disabled-friendly public amenities there make life easier for such people.

“There are clear guidelines that have to be followed without exception. A minimum number of parking slots – it varies according to the size of the parking area – are reserved for persons with disabilities. Obstructions are removed and the access ways are well lit. Clear signage, along with Braille equivalents, line public areas,” Asif said.

Back home, he feels disturbed that little thought is given to how people with disabilities go about their lives. “Stations like Howrah and Sealdah that are used by lakhs of people every day don’t have accessible parking for anyone with a disability,” he said. “Imagine a person with crutches having to get off a car and walk 200 steps before he reaches a ramp or a lift,” Asif said.

While the architecture of some of the older buildings is a challenge, what pains Asif is that “there is hardly any discussion on the topic in Calcutta, which prides itself on being a city with a heart”.

Prejudices and roadblocks are not new to Asif, though. After failing to clear an annual school examination in Bhagalpur, he remembers some teachers saying he did not have a future.

On his return from the US, he again studied in India and became the first blind commerce graduate from St Xavier’s College. He was denied admission to some MBA coaching institutes because the courses were purportedly “not designed for people like me”. Asif did not give up and earned an MBA degree from Symbiosis, Pune.

A PIL he filed in 2000 was instrumental in creating reservation for people with disabilities in the IIMs.

If anything frustrates him, it is how his mission has unfolded so far. “I believe the chief minister has yet to see my letter. It must have been buried under a heap of files. The moment she sees it, I think I will get an audience with her,” Asif said.

He is not unfamiliar with how government projects are implemented in India and the time it takes to get something done. As an employee of PwC India, he is involved in digital accessibility initiatives with the Centre and state governments. He has assisted in making the Aadhaar project inclusive and the process of filing online income tax returns more disabled-friendly.

Asif has already prepared a concept note for the parking project that he hopes will work out in Bengal someday. According to him, such a project requires multiple stakeholders like the municipal corporation, the police and the ministry of social welfare.

Quest and South City malls have a few slots reserved for wheelchair users in their parking lots, but Asif envisions something more comprehensive.

Rights activist Sayomdeb Mukherjee, who uses a wheelchair, said apathy was the root of the problem. “Our roads, footpaths, buildings – the entire ecosystem lacks an effort to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream. Barrier-free architecture is a distant dream and parking lots are just an extension of the challenge,” he said.

Sayomdeb said he was in talks with the police to introduce stickers to identify cars belonging to people with disabilities so that they get parking in public places like the airport, railway stations, government offices and malls.

For Asif, the use of technology makes up for the things that blindness has denied him. Sitting in his glass cabin at the Sector V office of PwC, Asif works on a laptop with voice-recognition software and replies to messages on his iPhone using an artificial intelligence app.

It’s often hard to tell, especially for someone who doesn’t know, that Asif cannot see. But he sees the future for people with disabilities, and he will play a role in it for sure.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Debraj Mitra / August 05th, 2018