Persons with disabilities “world’s largest minority” have generally poor health, lower education achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rate of poverty than people without disabilities. This is due to the lack of services available to them like information and communications (ICT) and justice and transportation and the many obstacles they face in their everyday lives. These obstacles can take a variety of forms including those relating to the physical environment, or those resulting from legislation or policy its implementation or from societal attitudes or discrimination.People with disabilities are at higher risk of violence:
- Children with disability are almost four times more likely to experience violence than nondisabled.
- Adults with some form of disability are 1.5 times more likely to be a victim of violence.
- Adult with mental health conditions are at nearly four times the risk of experiencing violence.
Disability strikes any one-age-sex-community and caste is no bar. Software engineer has a brain injury and labourer loses his hand or someone else is crippled by cancer. It is important to keep in mind that disability is part of the human condition and that all of us either are or may become disabled to one degree or another during the course of our lives. ‘A human being is a magnificent of the creation and that magnificence should be exposed in a humane, magnanimous and all inclusive manner so that all tend to feel that they have their deserved space”
According to estimates available 3% of the children in the world and in India the figure is estimated to be 5%. Unfortunately in India children with special needs are largely not treated as special. It is common to hear the physically challenged mocked as langda(lame) or the mentally challenged as “Pagal”(mad).. This insensitivity stems from social taboos and adult ignorance. For a significant number of parents, children with any sort of disability from slight to severe are a source of embarrassment. Government has been taking steps to ensure that children with special needs are not segregated and instead get an opportunity to attend regular schools with normal children. The person with disability Act 1995 provides that every child with a disability has access to free education up to the age of 18 years, no child with disability be denied admission in mainstream educational institutions there should be a provision of trained teachers available for them modify physical infrastructure and teaching methodologies and all schools be made disabled friendly by 2020. There is a provision of 4% reservation in govt. jobs. Twenty one conditions of disabilities recognized in disability Act, of 2016 are blindness, low vision, hearing impairment ,locomotors disability, leprosy cured, mental retardation and mental illness. dwarfism, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, specific learning disabilities, muscular dystrophy, Acid attack victim, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, thalassemia, hemophilia, sickle cell disease ,autism spectrum disorder, chronic neurological conditions and multiple Disabilities including deafness and blindness. As per census of 2011 our state of Jammu and Kashmir has around 361000 population of persons with disabilities but various researches depict that our state has around 6 lakhs of persons with disabilities with 120000 orthopedic disabled and around 90000 persons are suffering with mild to severe mental illness both these disabilities are on rise because of armed conflict and allied political disturbances. The frontier Dist. in our state are worst hit areas due cross border shelling. Blindness also at rise as per 2011 census around 67000 persons with blindness are there in the state.
Number of persons with disabilities in J&K as per census of 2011
Name of the Disability | Male | Female | Total | |
1 | Seeing Disability | 35656 | 30792 | 66448 |
2 | Hearing Disability | 42744 | 31352 | 74096 |
3 | Speech Disability | 11351 | 7330 | 18681 |
4 | Movement Disability | 35145 | 22992 | 58137 |
5 | Mental Disability | 9798 | 5926 | 16724 |
6 | Mental Illness | 8810 | 6859 | 15669 |
7 | Multiple Disability | 24478 | 19963 | 44441 |
8 | Other Disability | 36852 | 30105 | 66957 |
Grand Total | 204834 | 156319 | 361153 | |
Total Rural=273952
Total Urban= 87201 |
It is encouraging to note that the number of people suffering disability as a consequence of leprosy is rapidly falling and polio is comparatively on the decline. The Right to Persons with disabilities (RPD), Act, 2016 has come into force from April 2017.The Govt. of India has launched lot of schemes and initiatives for creating universal accessibility to persons with disabilities in built environment, transport, Information and Communication Technology(ICT) to provide both preventive and promotive aspects of rehabilitation. Steps taken to Empower the persons with disability are;
- ACCESSIBLE INDIA CAMPAIGN:- OF 709 A1, A &B category railway stations, 653 are made accessible in short term features such as (1) Provision of standard ramp(2) Earmarking to parking lots for physically challenged (3) Provision of non – slippery walkway from parking to station building (4) Provision of Signages (5) Provision of at least one disable friendly toilet (6) May I help you booth.111 websites have been made accessible and work is in progress for others.
2.Unique Disability Identification (UDID) Project: –
The Department of Empowerment of persons with Disability GOI is in the process of implementing Unique Disability Identification (UDID)Project with a view to create data base for PwDs and also to issue Unique ID card to each of them. Software has been developed and hosted on NIC cloud. The project will also provide an online platform for issuance of disability certificates issued by any authority can be authenticated through the web portal across the country. The UDID will encourage transparency, efficiency and ease of delivering the benefits to the persons with disability.
3.District Disability Rehabilitation Centre (DDRC) The DDRC perform outreach activity of the Ministry of Social justice and Empowerment Government of India for providing Comprehensive services to the persons with disabilities at the grass root level and for facilitating creation of the infrastructure and capacity building at the district level for awareness generation, rehabilitation and training of rehabilitation professionals. Each DDRC may have 12 staff members such as Clinical Psychologist, Physiotherapist, Occupational therapist, Prosthetist, Optometrist, Speech therapist/ Audiologist, Hearing assistant, Mobility instructor and multipurpose rehabilitation worker must be registered with Rehabilitation council of India (RCI).
4.National Trust:-National trust is a statutory body set up by an Act of parliament to discharge two basic duties legal and welfare. Legal duties are discharged by local committee providing legal guardianship and welfare duty is discharged through the schemes. There are around 682 registered organizations of the national trust in the country and 680 local level committees have been constituted covering almost all the districts of the country (excluding the state of Jammu and Kashmir).National trust provides funds for conducting institutional activities of registered organizations and local committees, Documentation/reporting, honorarium for coordinator and miscellaneous activities.
5.Deen Dayal Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS) :-
Section 27 of the RPD Act.2016 mandates the Government to undertake services and programme of rehabilitation particularly in the area of health, education and employment for persons with disabilities. The existing has been revised with effect from 1/4/2018 to ensure effective implementation of the RPD Act,2016 for providing education and vocational training and rehabilitation and encouraging NGOs through assistance for undertaking projects for the empowerment of the persons with disabilities.
6.National Career Service Centre for differently-abled :-
Presently 20 national career service centers’ for differently able are functioning all over the country under Ministry of Labour and Employment GOI .Out of twenty such centers one Centre at Vadodara has been set up exclusively for women with disabilities. These centers are playing proactive role in creating public awareness of people with disabilities and community participation in the rehabilitation
7.Centre for Disability Sports:-
The Department of Empowerment of persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) is in the process of establishment of 3centres of disability sports in three states of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh and for which land has been identified and obtained at Gwalior,Zirakpur and Vishakhapatnam respectively.
8.National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) :-
National Institutes in each major area of Disability are established like National Institute for the Empowerment of person with Visual disability(NIEPVD) at Dehradun (ii) Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities(AYJISHD) at Mumbai (iii) National Institute for Locomotors Disabilities(NILD) AT Kolkata(iv) Swami Vivekananda national Institute of the Rehabilitation Training and Research (SVINITAR)at Cuttack (v)Pt. Deen Dayal Institute for persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PDUNIPPD) at Delhi (vi) National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Physical Disabilities (NIEPID) at Secunderabad, (vii) National Institute for the Empowerment of persons with Multiple Disabilities (NIEPMD) at Chennai and (viii) Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre(ISLRTC) at New Delhi.
9.District Early Intervention Centre(DEIC):-The early intervention centers are established at the Dist. Hospital Level under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakaram (RBSK) National Health Mission.
The purpose of DEIC is to provide referral support to children detected with health condition during health screening, primarily for children up to 6 years of age and management of defects at birth, Deficiency conditions and developmental delays including Disabilities-4Ds
- Teacher Training Institute (TTI);-
The Rehabilitative Council of India(RCI) is mandated to monitor the training programme for professionals in the field of disability rehabilitation, special education and research. Ministry of Empowerment and Social Justice is in the process of establishing a National Institute for Inclusive and Universal Design (NIIUD) at New Delhi and National Institute of Mental Health Rehabilitation at Bhopal. Legislation is shaped by public perception and public perception can be shaped by dissemination of information through all the resources to improve the knowledge of the general and target population. In order to empower and support the differently able not only the Govt. but all of us the people with disabilities themselves, employers, health professional, educators, local communities, and families should put a concerted effort to make the Disability Act, a reality.
( The author is counselor and Social worker in Psychiatric Diseases Hospital of GMC Jammu, Views are her own)