Hanumantha Rao Pasupuleti

Hanumantha Rao Pasupuleti is a paediatrician and rehabilitation specialist who founded the Sweekaar Academy of Rehabilitation Sciences in Hyderabad. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2023 in the field of medicine, from Telangana ^[1].

Choosing a different path

Pasupuleti was born in Hyderabad on 16 September 1945 into a family of doctors and completed his MD in paediatrics in 1975 ^[2]. Wanting to work with people with disabilities, he turned down a government job, left a busy practice and went to Bombay to train in rehabilitation medicine at the All India Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; he also earned a PhD in rehabilitation psychology ^[2].

A school in a garage

In 1977 he started a school for children with intellectual disabilities in his garage and part of his clinic, with five children and two teachers ^[2]. As it grew it became the Sweekaar Academy of Rehabilitation Sciences ^[2]. In 1986 he added a school and junior college for deaf students, whose graduates have found jobs in government and private firms ^[2].

Training the trainers

Seeing how few trained professionals there were, he started two diploma courses in special education in 1986 ^[2]. These have grown into 30 programmes, up to doctoral level in clinical psychology, which have trained more than 8,000 professionals in special education, speech and hearing, and clinical psychology ^[2]. Sweekaar now offers services for every kind of disability under one roof, runs mobile rural clinics and campuses in Kadapa, Guntur and Tandur, and has employed people with disabilities both on its staff and in the community ^[2].

He received the Dr B. C. Roy Award in 1995 and has received national awards from the President of India five times ^[2].