Ministry reports neglect the disabled: shadow report
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COMMENTS 
According to a shadow report on disability, released recently, the office of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disability has been vacant for over nine months
The ninth anniversary of the enactment of the Persons with Disability Act 1995, on February 7, saw the release of a report 'Disabled People in India: The Other Side of the Story -- April 2003 to March 2004', prepared by Sakshi Broota of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP). The report analyses the policies of various ministries and departments in relation to disabled people.
The shadow report also serves as a crosscheck of activities highlighted in government reports, especially the annual report by the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, which has not yet come out, nine months after the financial year ended.
"The reports do not portray the true picture. They lack basic disability statistics, details of beneficiaries of various schemes and the reach of the schemes. They often read like information brochures for various schemes, and the shadow report is an attempt to highlight the other side of the story," said Javed Abidi, the NCPEDP's executive-director while releasing the report.
The Disability Act, that promises equal opportunities to the disabled, provides for three per cent job reservations for disabled people. However, the shadow report reveals that, for the past four years, the annual reports of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Labour do not provide any information on the implementation status of the three per cent reservation in government jobs.
The report also reveals that the office of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disability, who is responsible for coordinating and monitoring work in this field, and the utilisation of funds by the central government, has been vacant for over nine months.
"The office remained vacant for three years after the enactment of the law. And when activists and the media (put pressure), the ministry (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) came up with a bureaucrat within three days. And now again it's lying vacant. That explains the fate of the office is in the hands of this ministry," says Abidi.
The NCPEDP has meanwhile submitted a blueprint to the prime minister to ensure the rights of the disabled, to demand amendments in the Act and to include haemophilia, thalassaemia and autism in the definition of disability.
Stressing that the government's reports are mostly sketchy and seldom updated, the shadow report cites the example of the Ministry of Labour that placed 3,500 disabled people in government jobs in 2001 and carried the information in its 2003-04 annual report.
The NCPEDP also stresses the fact that there are no disabled-friendly vehicles in Delhi, or even disabled-friendly toilets at New Delhi railway station. The shadow report emphasised that the 10th Plan had made provision for a 'Composite plan for Disabled' in the budgets of all the ministries, but that none of the central ministries' annual reports mentioned the plan.
"All the reservations for jobs and seats in educational institutions are for the SC/ST category, because they serve as a potential vote bank. Although there are reservations for disabled people no ministry seems to take them seriously," says Abidi.
Source: The Hindu, February 7, 2005
The Indian Express, February 7, 2005