Empowerment Of Persons With Disabilities

About 2.68 Crore people living with one or the other form of physical disability in India. Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) are often considered as a burden, but performance of India at Paralympics games shows us their true potential, if such persons are given with proper environment.

  • Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring welfare of PwDs.
  • Many schemes and policy initiatives has been taken by the Department. Few of them are discussed below-

Unique Disability Identification (UDID) Project

It was launched in 2018 with the objective of creating a National Database for Persons with Disability (PwDs). It will achieve the objective by issuing Unique Disability ID card along with Disability certificate to beneficiary.

  • Once it is universalized, it’ll become mandatory to avail benefits in welfare schemes.
  • As per latest estimates (2019), more than 1.2 million IDs have been disbursed.
  • The biggest positive of the project is that it will merge the fragmented IDs and just like Aadhar would create a single database and ID to avail benefits under various subheads.

Inclusive India Initiative

  • It was launched in 2017 with the objective of including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the mainstream (access to all important aspects of social life like education, employment and community); this scheme is all about changing attitudes.
  • The three core focus areas of Inclusive India Initiative are - Inclusive Education, Inclusive Employment, and Inclusive Community Life. National Trust, a statutory body under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the nodal agency for the initiative.

Challenges

  • Negative attitudes of teachers and community.
  • Scarcity of skilled human and material resources. (As per an on-field survey by an NGO, it was found that 70% of teachers have not received training in special education nor had any experience teaching students with disabilities.)
  • Infrastructure being unfriendly.

Solutions

  • The government must strive for synchronization and coordination amongst various schemes and policies meant for the welfare of PwDs like linking Sugamya Bharat with Inclusive India campaign to make them more effective.
  • Moving away from ‘charity based approach’ to ‘right based approach’.
  • A well planned initiative must be backed with effective implementation to ensure its success, same follows for Inclusive India Initiative.

Sugamya Pustakalaya

It is an online library for persons with visual disabilities launched in 2016. The library houses publications across diverse subjects and languages multiple accessible formats.

  • It has been created by Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in collaboration with member organizations of Daisy Forum of India and powered by TCS Access.
  • Over 2 lakhs books in diverse languages. Integrating libraries across India and the Globe, including the largest international library, ‘Bookshare’.

Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan/ Accessible India Campaign

It was launched in 2015 with the objective of achieving universal accessibility for PwDs.

  • The campaign targets three separate verticals for achieving universal accessibility namely the built up environment, transportation eco-system and information & communication eco-system.

Some Issues and Suggestions

  • It is generalized i.e. not specific to urban to rural areas, both the regions have specific problems and hence region specific directives must be issued.
  • It only targets existing state infrastructure i.e. buildings and transport. The private infrastructure must also be brought under its ambit, as the share of private infrastructure is more.
  • As per latest estimates (2018), 937 state buildings, 231 state government websites have been made disabled friendly.

Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS)

DDRS is a Central Sector Scheme which is being implemented since 1999 for providing financial assistance to NGOs working for education and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities. This scheme was revised in 2018 and the revised scheme is being implemented since 1st April 2018.

  • The scheme was revised mainly to keep it in line with Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, update price rise and remove outdated project models. The scheme has been lauded for encouraging civil society organizations participation in socio-welfare activities aimed at PwDs.
  • As per latest assessment (2018-19), more than 70 crores have been disbursed to 438 NGOs aiding 29,981 beneficiaries.

District Disability Rehabilitation Centre (DDRC) Scheme

It started as an outreach programme of Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJ&E), but post-passage of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and assessing its impact it was reinstated as planned scheme.

  • The objective of the scheme is to facilitate creation of infrastructure and capacity building at district level for awareness generation, rehabilitation and training of rehabilitation professionals.
  • As per annual report (2018-19) of the MoSJ&E, total 310 districts have been approved for setting DDRC, out of which 263 are active and 62 of which functions regularly.

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