by Navneet Bhullar, MD
Navjivini School of Special Education, founded in 1981, has a fine campus at Village Sular bordering the city of Patiala. We arrived around noon one fine day in early May- almost 3 and half hours it took us by car from Jalandhar. We saw young kids rollerskating in the driveway as we pulled up. Mr Mandeep Singh is Associate Professor and Director of Navjivini founded by a Dr Sarin,was built with funds from renowned Patiala philanthropist SPS Oberoi who has also recently donated to build a six-storey residential accommodation to meet expanding accommodation needs. Their private donations run into a crore rupees( one hundred lakhs).
I had decided to visit this pioneering educational and residential complex for PIDD so I could recommend it with firsthand knowledge rather than hearsay.
Navjivini special school is a fine spacious main building with well lit classrooms and modern offices. We visited four classrooms on two floors, an Occupational Therapy (OT) room, a small room for speech therapy and physical therapy, the last three comprise what Navjivini has named therapy labs. Of the four, two were adult classrooms and curriculum is defined as per the standards provided by the National Institute for the empowerment of persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Secunderabad.
Upstairs we saw a lot of extra space, open hallways, a large music room, even a grooming room where mehndi and makeup art are taught which was locked. There was a physiotherapist inside a well-equipped physiotherapy room. Speech and occupational therapy are done by special educators including principal S Kaushal, as is the case with almost everywhere in Punjab, land of neglected rehab education where speech and occupational therapy are not something any citizen knows or comprehends.
Doctors of different specialties including Psychiatry, are associated with Najivini. Sick residents are taken to either civil hospital or a private hospital identified by their families.
Mr Mandeep Singh told me they too have cut hours owing to staffing challenges, like APAAR has recently. They decided to launch the aforementioned therapy labs so parents are not fleeced by the expanding therapy industrial complex ( which is my term).
The economics has me floored- no fees charged in the special school and only Rs 12000 per month from adult hostel residents. They have been receiving grants from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in addition to generous private donations locally.
The adult hostel houses around 40 adult boys and men- the oldest was in his 50s. We met two former APAARites, Pawan and Vansh there. We met a caregiver who has been there since 1981.
Vansh’s medications have been cut down to half we were informed. At APAAR, we had trouble communicating with his psychiatrist in Ludhiana, a major challenge in special needs rehabilitation across North India where there is no psychiatry-rehab interface at all.
One family I know has moved from Hyderabad to Navjivini to get their teenaged autistic son treated for distressing maladaptive behaviours. He is a day scholar and they have rented accommodation to stay in the village Sular.
Pawan’s father is happy that Pawan has settled and is well cared for in the Sadhu Basant Residential Care building referred by parents simply as Navjivini hostel, which is a five storey campus with mango trees, a large paved sitting area in the back and fields behind with a partial boundary wall. The village fields vibes were pleasing albeit surprising, as the front of the tall building is a paved basketball court and a large entrance hall with a TV and hospital-like reception area where metal chairs lay vacant.
We saw residents idling around the building after their lunch. We chatted with two men who were asking about their fathers. One father from Ambala has been visiting the US and would be picking up the young man around May 27 when summer break would start for 35 days. A tall young man with microcephaly was from Shimla. Pawan was people watching, his favourite pastime. Vansh and others were seen eating lunch in the spacious well lit dining hall.
We saw one large dorm style bedroom on the first floor with short-walled cubicles and a total of nine beds and a common bathroom on the second floor. There is a functioning elevator.
Outings to the Solar gurdwara are common. There are no other outings.
We were served lunch in an office where another special educator joined us with Mandeep and Ms Kaushal.
Principal Savita Kaushal lives a half km away and returns in the evening for speech therapy. School broke off around 1 pm as we were finishing our main day care building tour . We saw auto rickshaws and the bustle of parents picking up small kids. We were pointed to the Hyderabad teenager who was seated on a swing in the front with an attendant.
Community involvement is encouraged. At Karva Chauth, women come to get mehndi painted on their hands by Navjivini boys and girls. School kids visit from three schools.
Vocational activity is seasonal- candles and wax diyas in Diwali season. I met one young adult employed in their office upstairs.
There is no other adult employment plan. The main attention is on children with special needs here, and the hostel adults seem to be engaged in sports every evening but little else.
Navijini impressed me as a well-coordinated symphony of doctors and rehab professionals, which is training special educators, in addition to the difficult task of running a residence housing forty adults. In April 2026, I had attended an ALFOC meeting of assisted living facilities in Delhi— there housing 25 was agreed to be a yeoman task due to HR challenges.
I think Patiala ’s citizens deserve credit for providing an enabling ecosystem as much as the 16- member Board of Navjivini. In Jalandhar, APAAR’s city there is an antagonistic, almost hostile citizenry which includes the families of PIDD.
This morning, I spoke with the mother of the Hyderabad teenager who reported “maybe a 20% reduction in his aggressive behaviour”. She had to hire a caregiver to be with him as Navjivini teachers are unable to manage his behaviour.
In conclusion, the hostel is Navjivini’s greatest accomplishment, an exemplar of what can be accomplished by an altruistic group of citizens. However , the paucity of rehab professionals in northern India is a limiting factor even for Navjivini where efforts seem concentrated on children with special needs.