Advani okays census for disabled

New Delhi, June 11: The disabled in the country will be included in the nationwide census in February next year. Home Minister L K Advani ...

New Delhi, June 11: The disabled in the country will be included in the nationwide census in February next year. Home Minister L K Advani signed his approval for the proposal yesterday ending the uncertainty among the disabled sector regarding their inclusion in the census 2001.

The Social Welfare Ministry had earlier even announced a national sample survey for the disabled as was done in 1991 (and which has given the figure of 1.9 per cent) after the Census Commission ruled out a census. But the sample survey was not acceptable to the disability groups who said that the survey did not give a true picture.

The Census Commission had been against the inclusion of the disabled on the plea that the 1981 census which had included the disabled for the first time since independence had given low figures of .9 per cent and had been subject to much criticism. The commission had also been citing the possibility of disabled people actually taking offence to questions from enumerators about their disability.

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However, the commission has been won over by the reasoning of disability groups that the low figure of the 1981 census was because of the loopholes in the way the census was conducted. The 1981 census had left out mentally retarded people and the hearing impaired out of its purview and restricted it to the broad categories of totally blind and totally dumb’.

The present decision of the Home Ministry follows efforts by disability groups which had the blessings of both Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Maneka Gandhi and Minister of Programme Implementation Arun Shourie.

Representatives of disability groups including Javed Abidi and Madhumita of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and Colonel Cordoza and Vandana Bedi of Spastics Society of Northern India had met Advani on March 7 this year seeking his intervention to get the disabled included in the census after the census commissioner had ruled it out.

Advani promised to look into the matter and later in a month Shourie and Maneka Gandhi had also put their weight behind the disabled in a joint meeting with Census Commissioner J K Banthia and representatives of disability groups.

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Speaking to The Indian Express today, Javed Abidi said his organisation as well as many others would now be busy in creating awareness among the disabled people in the country about the need to be counted in the census. He said the disabled were much more aware of their rights than they were in 1981 and they would cooperate. He said Maneka Gandhi has also promised to start a campaign for awareness among the disabled about the census in a big way through advertisements and short films.