HOW CAN THE Right of Persons with Disabilities be Protected ?

Is there a legal provision that protects the right of persons with disabilities?

The Parliament of India enacted ‘The persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995’ (PWD Act) which came into force on February 7, 1996. The Act is an initiative to promote equal opportunities for persons with disabilities, protect their rights and grant them full participation so that they are integrated into society and their rights are realized.

Why was this Act enacted?
 
Efforts for rehabilitation of persons with disabilities have evolved over time from institution based care and services to community based rehabilitation. Yet, the focus continues to be on helping persons with disabilities to adapt to the community through providing those aids and appliances, education and training.

It is being gradually accepted that it is equally important to change the environment and context in which the person lives. Over the past decade or so, internationally and nationally, a need has been felt to move away from a welfare and medical approach  to promoting and protecting the rights of disabled persons, ensuring equal opportunities in all spheres and enhancing the engagement of civil society for the ‘inclusion’ of the disabled. Several countries, including India, have enacted disability rights Acts. The PWD Act 1995 seeks to empower disabled persons so that they can be part of the mainstream society.

How many persons with disabilities are there in India?

Several organizations have collected data on the magnitude of disability in developing countries. Some organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), put it at five to six percent of the total population while other reports put the figure at as high as 10 percent*. The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), Government of India, conducted its third survey during July – December 2002 to provide information on the magnitude and other aspects of persons with disabilities. The findings published in the report, titled ‘Disabled Persons in India’, estimate that 1.8 percent of the total population of our country are disabled. Of them, about 10.63 percent are affected by more than one type of disability. The variation in the estimates is attributed to different methods and procedures employed, including the definition of disability, age groups studied, scope and geographical coverage, consideration to social and attitudinal barriers, the skill of data enumerators, etc

Who benefits under this Act?

The PWD Act 1995, recognizes the following seven categories of disability for providing equal opportunities, protecting the rights and ensuring full participation of persons with disabilities. The definition of each disability, as given in the Act, is also indicated.

BLINDNESS means total absence of sight, visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 (snellen) in the better eye with correcting lenses or limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse. LOW VISION means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potentially capable of using vision for the planning or execution of a task with appropriate assistive device.

LEPROSY CURED refers to a persons who is cured of leprosy but is suffering from loss of sensation in the hands or the feet as well as loss of sensation and paresis in the eye and eyelid but with no manifest deformity, manifest deformity and paresis but has sufficient mobility in the hands and the feet to engage in the normal economic activity, or extreme physical deformity as well as advanced age which prevent the person from undertaking any gainful occupation.

HEARING IMPARIMENT means loss of 60 decibels or more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies.

LOCOMOTOR DISABILTY means disability of bones, joints or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy.

MENTAL RETARDATION refers to a condition of arrested or incomplete development of the mind of a person which is specially characterized by sub normality of intelligence. MENTAL IILNES refers to any mental disorder other then mental retardation.

What are the main provisions of the Act?

The PWD Act seeks to empower disabled persons to be part of the mainstream. It is comprehensive and encompasses provisions for the prevention of disability, promoting education, employment, affirmative action, non – discrimination, research and manpower development, recognition of institutions for persons with disabilities and monitoring the implementation machinery.

Broadly, it includes the following provisions:

• Prevention and early detection of disability (Sec. 25)
• Free education for every child with disability in an appropriate environment till the age of 18 years (Sec. 26a)
• Schemes and Programmes for non –formal education (Sec. 27)
• Reservation of three per-cent seats for admission to all government educational institutions (Sec.39)
• Reservation of not less than three – percent in all poverty alleviation schemes (Sec. 40)
• Non- discrimination in transport, on the road and in the built environment so that persons with disabilities can go to any place without hindrance (Sec. 44 -46)
• Identification of posts which can be reserved and reservation of posts for persons with disabilities (Sec. 32a and 33)
• Special opportunities to overcome any kind of discrimination being faced, eg. Preference in allotment of land to disabled persons for housing, business, special schools, research centre, recreation centers and factories (Sec. 43)
• Generic and specialized services for rehabilitation (Sec. 66)
• Insurance scheme for employees with disabilities (Sec. 67)
• Scheme for unemployment allowance for persons not gainfully employed (Sec.68)
• Co- ordination and monitoring of provisions under the PWD Act (Chapters 2 & 3/Sec. 3-24)
• Appointment of a Commissioner in every State to look into complaints relating to deprivation and denial rights of persons with disabilities (Sec. 62)

Which documents does a person with disability require to avail benefits under this Act? To avail the benefits under the Act as well as those under the government schemes, one needs the following documents: Photograph depicting the disability of the person Proof of residence – ration card or voter’s ID Card. Certificate of disability Identity Card Proof of income Birth certificate

Information

Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment)      Sarojini House, 6, Bhagwan Dass Road, NewDelhi – 110 001     Tel : 011 – 23386054, 23386154. Fax : 23386006, 23384219    Website : www.ccdisabilities.nic.in       E-mail : ccpd@hub.nic.in

The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment is entrusted with the welfare, social justice & empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalised section of the society viz, Scheduled Caste, Backward Classes, Persons with Disabilities, Aged Persons, and victims of Drug Abuse etc.
 
Basic objective of the policies, programmes, law and institution of the Indian welfare system is to bring the target groups into the main stream of development by making them self-reliant      

DIRECTORATE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE & EMPOWERMENT
GOVERNMENT OF HARYANA

The Social Justice & Empowerment Department is working independently since the bifurcation of Social Welfare Department in the year 1992. The Department is implementing a number of schemes for the care, protection and rehabilitation of socially under privileged. Earlier the Social Justice & Empowerment Department was working within a very small area having few welfare schemes. Now, it has expanded its area of schemes and has implemented schemes since the creation of the Departments covering beneficiaries belonging to urban as well as rural areas. At present, the Department is implementing a number of schemes for the welfare of orphan/destitute children, juveniles in conflict with law, Widows, destitute women and their dependents, mentally retarded children, the blind, deaf & dumb in the state. Besides, the welfare of vulnerable groups of the society, the Department is also providing social security and economical assistance to the Senior Citizen, Widows and Handicapped of the States in the form of monthly pension who are unable to sustain themselves from their own resources and are in need of financial assistance.

The Director
Department of Social Justice and Empowerment
Haryana
SCO 68-70,Sector 17A
Chandigarh
Phone : 2704212
Fax: 2702749
Email : sje@hry.nic.in
Chandigarh

Department of Employment Haryana

The department administers the Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959, which is a Central statute and the Rules framed thereunder. At present, 61 employment exchanges are functioning in the State, out of which there is 1 State Employment Exchange Haryana at Chandigarh, 6 Divisional Employment Exchanges, 25 District/Town Employment Exchanges, 24 Rural Employment Exchanges, 1 Scheduled Caste (SC) Cell at State Employment Exchange Chandigarh, 1 Physically Handicapped (PH) Cell at State Employment Exchange, Chandigarh and 3 University Employment Information and Guidance Bureaux.

The Employment Exchanges perform mainly three types of functions viz. Registration of applicants and their placement, providing vocational guidance to job seekers and collect employment market information data from establishments in the organized sector. The Employment Exchanges are rendering free services to employers as well as to job seekers.

Director of Employment,
Haryana
SCO 17, 2nd Floor, Sector 7-C
Madhya Marg, Chandigarh - 160019
Telephone: 0172-2794447,2794235
Fax: 0172-2794447