Mumbai: TISS conference on disability marks year of new Act

The completion of a year since the Rights for Person with Disability (RPWD) Act was passed in the Parliament was marked by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences' Centre for Disability Studies and Action with a national conference on disability, accessibility, inclusion and wellbeing at the Mumbai campus.

Justice AK Sikri, of the Supreme Court who has given several landmark judgments on disability in cases like Jeeja Ghosh Vs Spice Jet and Sandeep Khanuja Vs. Atul Dande was the chief guest at the conference where Director Ministry of Social Justice and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability KVS Rao was also present.

Rao spoke about the concerns on implementation of the Act 2016. “The government will soon release the Unique Disability Identity Card and 'it will reduce the pains of person with disability regarding getting the Disability Certificate and its one stop scheme to provide all schemes under one card.”

Senior Consultant of UDID Scheme Gaurav Gupta said: “Most relevant in availing facilities under one card including aids and appliances or pension and give hope to persons with disability”.

The WHO national professional officer -Universal Health Coverage Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, stated that disability is not a mainstream agenda for them, but due to this conference he analysed few key schemes on disability under Universal Health Coverage . He presented two schemes Niramaya Scheme and Pension Scheme and highlighted: “Only 0.02% is the coverage of the beneficiary population of persons with dibsability out of 3% population, where its supposed to reach. So the disability schemes reaches less than 0.02%”

The state programme officer of the Norway-India initiative Dr Dipak Ganvir who is in-charge of the new born project spoke about early intervention of neonates born with defects and also made a presentation on sickle cell anemia/disease which is one of disability under 21 categories of RPWD Act 2016. He suggested “an urgent need for training of government officials in tribal areas of Maharashtra on designing special prevention and treatment programmes on sickle cell anemia a genetic condition found in central Maharashtra Melghat region” due severe deaths of children, life threatening and extreme pain conditions of youth.

Dr Vaishali Kolhe, Chairperson of Centre for Disability Studies and Action which organised this conference called the two-day conference historical since it was inaugurated by the Supreme Court Justice AK Sirki who gave landmark judgments on disability just before coming to the conference. “This conference aimed to bring best practices in the disability sector and re-imagining disability in the context of the current legislation and policy framework to design needs based intervention with rights-based approach for people with disabilities,” she said.

A Journal of Disability Studies and Policy Research was also released on December 17, 2017 in presence of TISS director Prof S Parasuraman and Dean School of Social Work Prof Manish Jha with Dr Vaishali Kolhe Chairperson and Editorial board member. The inaugural theme is 'Critical Analysis of Current Disability Laws, Policies and Accessibility.' This first-of-its-kind journal aims to significantly look at how law can disable if not interpreted in the right context. This journal also brings the policy highlights in terms of inclusive education and UNCRPD context and implementation of new act RPWD Act 2016.