Necessity for a new national policy for persons with disabilities

In News 

• Recently ,The Department of Empowerment of Person with Disabilities (DoEPwD) released the draft of the national policy for persons with disabilities (“Policy”) .

Need 

• The necessity for a new policy was felt because of multiple factors such as
  •  India’s signing of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  •  Enactment of a new disability legislation (Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016) which increased the number of disabilities from seven conditions to 21 and
  •  Being a party to the Incheon Strategy for Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2013-2022 (“Incheon commitment”). 

• These commitments have changed the discourse around disability by shifting the focus from the individual to society, i.e., from a medical model of disability to a social or human rights model of disability.

About  the policy

• It replaces the 2006 policy .
• The policy document highlights a detailed commitment to education, health, skill development and employment, sports and culture, social security, accessibility and other institutional mechanisms. 

Objectives

• It aims to showcase the Government’s commitment to the inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities by providing a mechanism that ensures their full participation in society.

Challenges faced by persons with disabilities

• Political empowerment and the inclusion of the disabled are an issue that has not found traction in India’s democratic discussion. 
• India does not have any policy commitment that is aimed at enhancing the political participation of disabled people.
• The exclusion of disabled people from the political space happens at all levels of the political process in the country, and in different ways. 

• Political parties in India still do not find the disabled as the large electorate to specifically address their needs.
• The lack of live aggregate data on the exact number of the disabled people in every constituency only furthers their marginalisation. 
• Inadequate representation
  • Representation plays an imperative role in furthering the interests of the marginalised community. 
  • Disabled people are not represented enough at all three levels of governance. 

Ways to handle them

• The goal of the policy document — of inclusiveness and empowerment — cannot be achieved without political inclusion. 
• The policy can follow a four-pronged approach: 
  • Building the capacity of disabled people’s organisations and ‘empowering their members through training in the electoral system, government structure, and basic organisational and advocacy skills’
  • The creation, amendment or removal of legal and regulatory frameworks by lawmakers and election bodies to encourage the political participation of the disabled;
  • inclusion of civil societies to ‘conduct domestic election observation or voter education campaigns’ and 
  • a framework for political parties to ‘conduct a meaningful outreach to persons with disabilities when creating election campaign strategies and developing policy positions’.
• Central and State governments must work together with other stakeholders to “make the right real”.
  • A few States have begun the initiative at local levels to increase participation.
    •  For instance, Chhattisgarh started the initiative of nominating at least one disabled person in each panchayat. 

[Q] Persons with disabilities are not represented enough at all three levels of governance in India ,Comment