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Disability Bill 2012: How far have we really come?

This blogpost is compiled and jointly written by Deepti Gahrotra, Communications Manager, Score Foundation and Avinash Shahi, Advocacy Officer, Score Foundation. Please note that Eyeway's Blog entries reflect the opinions of the author and contributors, meant to encourage debate and discussion, and not Score Foundation's official policy position.

In 1995 when the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) - PWD Act was passed, the disability sector in India rejoiced. It was considered a landmark judgement at the time, since before that no law existed to safeguard and protect the rights of disabled people in India. However over the last 18 years the implementation of the act has been sketchy and disappointing.

In most cases implementers across the country were unaware of the provisions of the act, and disabled people were forced to fight every step of the way. This is clear from the myriad of calls we received on our helpdesk over the last 6 years complaining of discrimination. From being refused an ATM Card, to being refused admission in mainstream schools and even discrimination at the workplace, disabled people have always had to knock the judiciary’s door. When it comes to examination related problems, such as looking for a scribe, being awarded extra time, getting the question paper in an accessible format, disabled people spend more time getting the legalities sorted out than they do actually studying.

Disabled people have been forced to go to court or approach the CCPDs office time and again to demand their rights. Since the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) office is a civil court its judgements are not binding, and as a result there is a definite lack of a proper monitoring mechanism where implementation of the Act is concerned.

All this pointed to the need for a more robust law to safeguard the rights of persons with disabilities in India. One that is more in harmony with the UNCRPD which India is a signatory to. Over the last 4 years considerable work and effort has gone into making a draft bill for a new and improved law for persons with disabilities (PwD) both by the government as well as by various disability activists who were invited to put forward their views. On December 12th 2013, the Rights of Person with Disabilities (RPWD) Bill 2012 was unanimously passed by the Cabinet. The bill however was not tabled in the parliament, and there is an anxiety in the disability sector that if the bill is not tabled before the General Elections 2014 it could lapse.

Unfortunately, however, the final approved bill has, as yet not been shared in public domain, and nobody is clear how far the bill has come in moving away from a charity model and looking at disabled people as potential human resources for the country.

Recently, an activist managed to get a copy of the final approved Bill from the ministry of Law. The final bill is disappointing, and so far as blind people are concerned there is no significant improvement from the PWD Act. In some places the law even seems to be regressing. For example the RPWD Bill defines blindness as visual acuity between complete absence of vision to 3/60 in the better eye after correction, in the Snellen’s chart, and it goes on to define low vision as visual acuity not exceeding 6/18 and less than 6/60. This perhaps is an unintentional typing error and should read “visual acuity not exceeding 6/18 and NOT less than 6/60”. However this still raises the question, when do people with visual equity between 3/60 and 6/60 fit in and what are provisions for them. Mr. Rungta, a social activist and secretary of the National Federation for the Blind says, that in its present form this will further confuse matters, and give employers the opportunity to choose low vision candidates over legally blind ones, when hiring as per the stipulated reservation of 0.5% for each in government jobs. Merry Barua, a disability activist associated with Action for Autism was thrilled to see Autism was included in the group of 18 disabilities the Bill recognizes, however on closer inspection she was disappointed to see that the Bill defines autism incorrectly.

The Bill also does not improve upon the provisions in the PWD Act with regard to equality in employment rights for persons with disability. The Bill once again mandates reservation of jobs only in the public sector, with no mention of the private sector, which was clearly included in 2011 version of the draft bill. The bill further mandates 5% job reservation for disabled people, which is fine on the face of it, but this is once again computed only on the number identified jobs, which is contrary to the spirit of the Supreme Court judgment of Oct 2013, which talks about reservation of jobs on total number of jobs and not just the identified. Moreover the concept of identification of jobs is rather outdated and arbitrary, as it fails to recognize that with a certain degree of reasonable accommodation, potentially all jobs are fit for PwD.

Furthermore, the Bill calls for the constitution of a 3 member commission, which anybody can chair, and 1 reserved seat for a person with disability. The Commision is meant to be a monitoring body that can call on institutions and individuals to reply within a month on matters of discrimination against PwD. since once the reply is received, the commission has no further power to take action, it is a toothless body at best. Moreover, the fact that the commission need only comprise of 1 disabled person seems grossly unfair, when compared to other commission such as womens commissions or minority commissions that are composed entirely from within the community they protect.   

Having said all this, it is important to recognize the imminent need for a better disability law in India, and hence it would be prudent for the bill to be tabled in Rajya sabha so that it does not lapse, but the Bills needs to be referred to select committee before it is passed in both houses of the parliament, so that the content of the bill can be discussed threadbare with all stakeholders and the right thing can be done.

It is high time that that disabled people are recognized as citizens of the country. They must have a say in how the country is run, especially in matters pertaining to their own lives.

The above are some of the initial observation on the RPWD Bill shared by various people however a careful study of the bill can throw up more. It is important that since the RPWD will be around for a long time to come that the bill is as accurate as possible, and ensure that a proper monitoring and evaluation mechanism is put into place to check gaps in implementation.

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