With UPA-II having performed like a moving caravan of scams, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is desperate to log some achievements before the forthcoming elections and has honed in on the Disabilities Bill as heart-warming evidence of her compassionate nature. All attempts are being made to morally and politically browbeat the Opposition parties to pass this hastily prepared legislation during the Budget Session of Parliament, which has been called to pass the Vote on Account to enable the Government to draw necessary expenditure for the next six months till a new regime has time to present a formal Budget. The Bill is expected to be tabled in Parliament on February 5.
After nearly five years of sustained non-performance, the Congress hopes to dazzle the electorate with a plethora of untried laws; its wistful vice president has asked the media to ensure that six pending anti-corruption bills are passed in the last session of the lame duck regime to give the party talking points during the election campaign. It remains a mystery why, as in the case of the mess over Telangana, the Congress leadership allowed all issues it considered important to fester.
The Cabinet approved of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill in December 2013. It will replace the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunity Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act of 1995. The proposed new Bill is expected to conform to norms under the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Sonia Gandhi announced in January 2014 that the Bill would be passed in the Budget Session. It reportedly addresses a range of issues relating physical, mental and multiple disabilities, and aims to bring issues of the disabled into mainstream society and make their development a key component of Government policies.
Activists who work with the disabled, however, claim that the UPA is rushing through a vague legislation, and that serious amendments are necessary to make a meaningful impact on the lives of persons with disabilities, and their families. The proposed legislation is full of loopholes, vague language, and incomplete or confusing definitions.
A major lacuna is the lack of clarity about the necessary funds for the required programmes, and how these are to be funded. The bill does not provide funds on the basis of a percentage of the Union Budget. Activists favour 3 per cent to 5 per cent of the budget to be allocated to the National Fund for the disabled. Instead, there is confusion about funding, which seems to be based on budget allocations from different programs in the Central and State Governments. This will diffuse focus and availability of benefits on the ground; activists want a system of six monthly reporting on fund utilisation.
What is needed at the outset is a separate department at the Centre and in the States in order to make focused efforts to transform the system vis-à-vis the disabled. Under Part IV and V of the Bill, there is vague talk about setting up a National Commission, State Commission, Central Advisory Board, State Advisory Board, District Committee, but the creation of so many new bodies without clearly defined roles and responsibilities could easily end up as a bureaucratic quagmire. It is better to create a cohesive and comprehensive department at the Central and State level and impart it with the necessary authority, funding and regulatory powers.
Ideally, since the programmes would be catering to persons, especially children, with disabilities, it is desirable to create a mechanism of continuous monitoring in place of post facto audit, which is the norm in most Government projects. Further, the activists feel that the benchmark disability, if placed at 20 per cent rather than 40 per cent impairment (Part I section 2, X), would make a more meaningful intervention in the lives of persons with disabilities. There should also be a uniform identity card for disabled persons across the country, to provide access to all benefits.
There should be a separate section on tax code changes for individuals with disability, for families with a disabled child or children, and for employers for hiring such talent, in order to incentivise better care and mainstreaming of disabled people. As part of the lessons learnt from the tragic death of a young student from Arunachal Pradesh, the law must provide stiffer penalties for the abuse of persons with disabilities; the current provisions are viewed as weak and ambiguous.
Regarding the accessibility of public places, the current penalty of Rs 50,000/- for non-compliance should be amended to 1 per cent of the building cost to compel compliance. All existing public buildings, schools, banks, medical facilities, Government offices, recreational places and so on must be made accessible within 3 years and not 5 years as at present. All government and private consumer services websites should be accessible and w3c compliant. No new building permit should be issued by the competent authorities without adequate provisions for accessibility.
Regarding the education of children with disabilities, experts point out that inclusive education will require trained teachers in sufficient numbers. The transition to inclusive education should have a minimum 2-year gestation plan, by which time trained teachers could be made available. There should be provision for education loans at zero interest for higher education, and home schooling and web-based learning should be allowed for all levels of education to overcome problematic issues of transporting children for families with limited means or limited availability of family labour to cater to the daily logistics involved in transporting children for regular education. Each district must have a vocational training centre for skill development and vocational training.
An action plan for the eventual employment of persons with disabilities must facilitate self-employment through low interest loans. There should also be a “Disability Insurance” fund to support persons who might become disabled during the course of employment.
A sensitive legislation must deal comprehensively with transportation-related provisions to ensure that all public transportation (bus, rail, air) is accessible with required equipment. A special licensing process would be in order for disabled persons who have learned to drive adapted motor vehicles.
Finally, health is the most critical issue for persons with disabilities. To begin with, a disability certificate should be granted within 24 hours by the chief medical officer of the local Government hospital after medically assessing the concerned individual. Subsidised medicines and aids to combat physical limitations, and integrated case management where complex healthcare is required, are the need of the hour. Unless these issues are adequately covered in the proposed legislation, it will be another meaningless addition to the statute book, and will leave the vulnerable section of society it professes to cater to feeling cheated. For families coping with untold physical and financial strain, there will be no relief, only dashed expectations.
Niticentral.com, 4 February 2014