NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 23 Don't play the disability card, that will only bring charity. Play the sports card, that’s where the solution lies. And ignore the government, tap the corporates.

That’s the gist of the message from Charlie Huebner today. Huebner, managing director of US Paralympics, was part of a digital video conference at the American Center here, discussing sports for the disabled. And while it is obvious that the strategies that formed part of the bigger plan for Huebner might not be workable in India, a lot of the ideas appear useful, if adapted into the Indian context.

In India, the biggest problem is awareness. A large chunk of the country remains unaware of the Paralympics or its participants. Ditto the fact that javelin thrower Devender Singh won gold with a world record at the 2004 Athens Paralympics, where powerlifter Rajinder Singh Rahelu also won bronze.

The US faced the same problem till a decade or so back. How did they solve it? ‘‘The issue is relevancy,’’ Huebner says. ‘‘After that is established, growth will come. In the US, once people got to know about our Paralympians, interest grew. Then money started coming in and everything fell into place. So much so that, for the past four years we had $18.5 million. And our budget for the period between 2005-08 is $27m.’’

Huebner — accompanied by champion goalball player Jennifer Armbruster — charts out the route USP had taken after the initial phase of spreading awareness:

• Develop marketing strategies

• Develop the Paralympic asset, create a brand that can be sold

• For that, prepare a high-performance plan

• Use platforms made available by meets for the able-bodied to raise money (the USP sent 97 disabled athletes to take part in the 2004 Boston Marathon and, as Huebner says, ‘‘we became the story of the event’’)

• Give the media stories on a regular basis

Now, while the last two points could be construed as modes of raising awareness, they also function as money-making devices.

So when R Amar Singh of the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) complained about the ‘‘lack of government support’’, Armbruster chipped in. ‘‘We don’t even try to get government support; it’s all from the corporates’’. And — as Huebner hints — a lot of the companies in the US are now part of the Indian set-up as well.

Which is probably the route the PCI needs to take. Not just Paralympics, but most sports in India suffer because administrators wait for aid from the government, which never comes.

It has to be good business for the corporates to show interest, and there can’t be a better moment than right now, when India can actually boast of Devender, a world champion/world record holder.