Hubballi: The celebration of ‘International Day of Disabled Persons’ on December 3 every year has become a largely ceremonial affair with the government leaving a lot to be desired when it comes to ensuring the welfare of those with disabilities. Many disabled individuals point to the inordinate delay in the implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, owing to which a large section of the specially-abled are struggling to get the benefits they are entitled to.
Although disabled individuals were pleased when the Centre passed the law in 2016 replacing the one that had been in place since 1995, Karnataka spent three years waiting to frame rules for their welfare in keeping with the new law. General secretary for Kranti Divyanga Rajya Okkuta Raghu N Hubballi said that more than half of the states in the Indian Union took more than two years to frame rules for their respective territories although the Centre notified the new Act in January 2017.
“According to the notification issued by the Karnataka government, assistant child development officers in every taluk were assigned the additional responsibility of ensuring the welfare of children with disabilities. But these officers have no idea as to how to work with disabled children. They are mostly concerned with providing nutritious food and medicine to the kids,” Raghu said.
He highlighted the need for disabled children to be trained with the aid of activity-based exercises, which officials from the women and child welfare department were not equipped to do. “In accordance with the new law, a grievance committee comprising the deputy commissioner, zilla panchayat chief executive officer, the top cop of the district, district judge among others needs to be formed. But these committees meet only for formality’s sake. On many occasions, assistants of these officials attend the meeting, and no solution is offered for the solutions,” Raghu added.
Ghanashyam Bhandage, an activist dedicated to the welfare of the disabled, said that the 2016 law had set right the anomaly of the lack of accountability that had crippled the efficacy of the 1995 Act. “Despite the new law making amends, more than a lakh of disabled individuals are not getting pension because officials cite reasons such as lack of Aadhaar synchronisation, discrepancies in fingerprint, et al. But many officers are not concerned in looking into these grievances,” he rued.
President of Belagavi District Karnataka State Government Disabled Employees’ Association Mahesh Angadi said, “The new law stipulates reservation of 3% of the jobs when the promotion is under way, but this has also not been implemented in Karnataka. Other states have enforced this already.”
Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities for Karnataka VS Basavaraju, however, asserted that the new law had been implemented across the state. “We have not received formal complaints. We cannot respond to such vague allegations. If we are presented with a specific set of problems, we will certainly act on them,” he said.