Persons With Disability Act ‘95 (India)
How Effective Is It?
The Persons with Disability Act ‘95 recognises seven disabilities.Under the Act there are 5% job reservations for the conventional disabilities: 1% each for visual, hearing and orthopaedic impairment and 2 % for MR, cerebral palsy and autism.
Mental Illness has been included as one of the seven disabilities, but by omission rather than commission: it states that mental illness is other than mental retardation. Amendments were supposed to clear up the discrepancies but I think they weren’t passed till January 2002 and doubt that they have been passed yet. Does anyone know?
Apparently, the Act defines a disabled person as one who is “suffering from 40% or more disability”. Does anyone know what exactly that means? The rule, seems to be widely followed with everyone right from education boards that sometimes ask disabled students to prove that they have a disability that is 40% or over so that they can avail of a writer’s help during exams, Sympathetic doctors usually give such certificates, but there really isn’t an accurate way in each case, particularly when it come to mental illness.
While the attempt may have been admirable, it looks like the law has loopholes large enough to drive horse carriages through.
Links:
National Centre For Promotion Of Employment For Disabled People, New Delhi www.ncpedp.org/
The Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, protection Of Rights And Full Participation) ACT, 1995 www.disabilityindia.org/pwdacts.cfm#back
The Persons with Disability Act ‘95 recognises seven disabilities.Under the Act there are 5% job reservations for the conventional disabilities: 1% each for visual, hearing and orthopaedic impairment and 2 % for MR, cerebral palsy and autism.
Mental Illness has been included as one of the seven disabilities, but by omission rather than commission: it states that mental illness is other than mental retardation. Amendments were supposed to clear up the discrepancies but I think they weren’t passed till January 2002 and doubt that they have been passed yet. Does anyone know?
Apparently, the Act defines a disabled person as one who is “suffering from 40% or more disability”. Does anyone know what exactly that means? The rule, seems to be widely followed with everyone right from education boards that sometimes ask disabled students to prove that they have a disability that is 40% or over so that they can avail of a writer’s help during exams, Sympathetic doctors usually give such certificates, but there really isn’t an accurate way in each case, particularly when it come to mental illness.
While the attempt may have been admirable, it looks like the law has loopholes large enough to drive horse carriages through.
Links:
National Centre For Promotion Of Employment For Disabled People, New Delhi www.ncpedp.org/
The Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, protection Of Rights And Full Participation) ACT, 1995 www.disabilityindia.org/pwdacts.cfm#back
Labels: Disability, Mental Illness
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