bengaluru an ongoing national survey of persons with disabilities pwd revealed that 80 of them find it difficult to access right assistive devices because of their wear and tear and the trouble involved in repairing and maintaining them the findings of the survey commissioned in december 2022 focusing on the problems faced by people with disabilities was presented at an awareness conclave organised by samarthanam trust for the disabled in collaboration with international institute of information technology bangalore iiitb and the department of differently abled senior citizensthe survey has so far covered 1500 children and adults with disabilities it will cover 500 more respondents by march as part of the survey usbased volunteers from georgia institute of technology have analysed existing data from 13 locations across india from pwd 80 from rural and 20 from urban areasexplaining one of the many problems faced by persons with disabilities k rajendraa cmd of innovative development transformations said when the audio or video on a smartphone goes off getting it repaired is a problem one may have a wheelchair but when one of its legs is broken getting it fixed is expensive about 48 of those surveyed showed a lack of awareness on how to use assistive technology he added ashwath narayan minister of skill development entrepreneurship and livelihood said while solutions exist making them available to people is the real challenge mahantesh g kivadasannavar chairman of samarthanam international said that as more people start using such technology the cost too will come down he urged innovators to keep the cost factor in mind in order to expand the reach