India talks diversity, but most companies employ less than 1% people with disabilities
India’s corporate diversity narrative falters when it comes to disability inclusion. Despite strong laws and public commitments, most companies employ fewer than 1 per cent persons with disabilities, according to the Marching Sheep PwD Inclusion Index 2025. The gap reflects systemic barriers, not lack of talent, locking millions of capable Indians out of formal employment.
India Talks Diversity, But Most Companies Employ Less Than 1% People With Disabilities
India’s corporate sector speaks fluently about diversity. Annual reports are dotted with pledges, panels debate inclusion, and leadership statements regularly invoke equity.
Yet, step inside most offices and one truth becomes unavoidable: people with disabilities are largely missing from the workforce. Not because they are absent from society, but because they remain excluded from opportunity.This contradiction sits at the heart of India’s diversity challenge, and recent data has stripped away any remaining ambiguity.
A gap the numbers no longer hide
The Marching Sheep PwD Inclusion Index 2025 offers a sobering snapshot of corporate India’s disability inclusion record.
According to the index, most Indian companies employ less than 1 percent of persons with disabilities (PwDs). A significant number do not employ even a single person with a disability. The findings underline a structural failure, not an isolated oversight.The data exposes a widening gap between intent and execution. Policies exist, commitments are announced, and yet participation remains negligible. Disability inclusion, it appears, often stops at the level of intent.
Laws exist. Access does not.
India cannot claim a vacuum of legal protection. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act mandates equal opportunity, non-discrimination, and reasonable accommodation. Corporate diversity charters frequently echo these principles. But the lived reality for jobseekers with disabilities tells a different story.Barriers to employment for disabled people start very early, at the stage of shortlisting, where inaccessible application systems, unconscious bias, and very narrow job descriptions totally screen out the candidates without their realization.
Those who manage to get through the door still face the challenges of workplaces without ramps or accessible washrooms and digital tools that are not compatible with assistive technologies.
Career growth is a further problem; leadership pipelines hardly ever take into account disabled people, therefore making the idea that inclusion is for the sake of good public relations at the entry level, not for long-term growth.India is bleeding talent that it has already discovered, developed and that it could nourish and support to blossom.In many cases, disability inclusion is portrayed as a form of charity or a way of ensuring compliance. However, experts claim that such a portrayal is essentially wrong.