Note: While searching antecedents of PWD act for my Theses, my friend JAWS alerted me about this great piece published in 1988. And I thought why not use this opportunity to circulate this piece which otherwise would have been difficult for blind people to lay their hands if JAWS had not...
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/draft-bill-recommends-reservation-the-handicapped/1/330016.html Ramindar Singh November 30, 1988 | UPDATED 13:47 IST "I was lucky. Not everyone is," says Sanjay Bhatnagar, the first handicapped person to be appointed a class one officer. Most advanced countries lake special care of their handicapped people. In India, the handicapped are often left to the mercy of an uncaring society. But special laws are now on the anvil to ensure statutory protection and employment for the disabled. A draft bill prepared by the Ministry of Social Welfare - for introduction in Parliament during the ongoing winter session - incorporates many recommendations of the Baharul Islam Committee, which had suggested in its report submitted on June 30 that the Constitution be amended to reserve the following for handicapped people: Four per cent of government jobs at all levels. Four per cent jobs in all public sector units. Four per cent jobs in all private sector units with more than 100 employees. Three per cent executive jobs in all private sector establishments with over 100 employees. Four per cent seats in all government colleges and schools. The committee further recommended that welfare of the handicapped be brought under the concurrent list (it is presently on the state list) and retirement age for them be extended by five years. "We have asked the Government to take particular care of children in the pre natal, peri natal and post natal phases, as most persons get handicapped during pregnancy or in early childhood due to lack of protein, iodine and proper medical care," Islam, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, told India Today. The presence of such provisions in the statute book will make it easier for deserving handicapped persons to receive their due. Fighting disablement is a lonely battle. "Your world collapses around you." says Vikram Dutt, 37, a former Delhi state basketball player and later coach for the Delhi team. Dutt used meditation and will power to light his way back to near normalcy after being crippled from the waist down by a spinal injury. For him and many others, it is important to stand on their own feet to regain self - confidence and shed dependence on others. Just as 28 - year - old Sanjay Bhatnagar did, clawing his way up from despondency to a class one officer's job in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, showing no less grit and determination than the legendary Sudha Chandran who danced to fame on an artificial leg. Bhatnagar finds it easy to smile these days as he surveys, from his wheelchair perch, the new privileged world that has opened up before him. But it wasn't always so. The struggle was hard and demanding and included unexpected hurdles that a mindless bureaucracy often places in the path of handicapped people. "If you lose one faculty, God has given others which compensate," says Dr R. Nigam, who taught surgery for 15 years after losing his eyesight. Stricken with muscular dystrophy from childhood, he plunged into studies to outperform classmates who would push him around. "It was a question of proving myself, first to others and then to myself." He managed to do that, and more. After graduating from Delhi University he first ran a little shop, then worked as an assistant in the Lok Sabha and1 later, the Ministry of External Affairs. Bhatnagar ran into his first serious road - block after he passed an examination to select probationary officers for the State Bank of India. The bank' posted him to Bhopal, but Bhatnagar pleaded that in view of his disability, he be allowed to stay on in Delhi. The bank responded by cancelling his appointment. He challenged the dismissal but the high court rejected his appeal. Undeterred, Bhatnagar returned to his job in the External Affairs Ministry and took the examination for the IAS. Again he was selected, putting the Ministry of Personnel in a fix as there was no precedent for appointing a disabled person as a class one officer. He appealed to Margaret Alva, the minister of state for youth and sports. Alva had a word with the Minister of State for Personnel P. Chidambaram, who ordered that a suitable desk job be found for Bhatnagar. Today Bhatnagar sits in a seventh floor room at the Press Information Bureau where he is designated assistant information officer. "I was lucky". Bhatnagar says modestly. "I come from an educated family. My mother is a schoolteacher and my father retired as a deputy secretary in the Government. But for other people life is not so simple". It wasn't, for M. Rajeshwara Rao, a handicapped administrative officer in the Reserve Bank of India, who qualified for the IAS in 1984. The Ministry of Personnel, however, at that time took the view that a seriously handicapped person could not enter the IAS or customs, Rao's second choice, as they involved field postings. Rao was offered a desk job in the Audit and Accounts Service, which he refused. "There is no thinking on the part of the Government to review the physical standards required for the IAS, IPS and customs." said an official of the Personnel Ministry. Rao took the matter up to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. That - prompted the Government to set up the committee headed by Baharul Islam. Referring to cases like Rao, the Minister of State for Social Welfare Rajendra Kumari Bajpai says the Government will have to categorise types and degrees of handicap to enable them to get worthwhile jobs. At present, concessions are made for handicapped persons only in class three and class four jobs. Chidambaram favours some concessions for them in class two jobs, but there is bureaucratic opposition. Let alone jobs, there is no agreement even on the number of handicapped persons in the country. "I could have fought and got my promotion but that meant fighting for every subsequent promotion," says Chandra Rao, a bank employee. Bajpai says the 1981 census lists the number of handicapped people at 12 million, but according to Surrendar Saini, a member of the Baharul Islam Committee and president of the All India Federation of the Deaf, the figure would be nearer 80 million, or 10 per cent of the population. "The Government hesitates to accept this figure because it represents a big chunk of the population," says Saini. Jobs and vocational rehabilitation clearly remain the most crucial needs of the handicapped. "The Government says a lot of things but hardly any jobs are available," complains Dr R Nigam, former professor of surgery at Delhi's Maulana Azad Medical College. "If someone has lost one faculty, that does not mean he is completely handicapped. God has given him other faculties which allow him to compensate for his disability," says Nigam, who certainly is an outstanding example of a person who did not allow visual impairment to curtail his professional career. Nigam lost his eyesight in 1963 but he continued teaching surgery for 15 years till 1978. Even a double amputee, who has lost both legs, is for most practical purposes a complete person. So why should he be denied a job, asks Nigam. Getting employment is only half the problem. Getting a fair deal in the matter of promotions is the other half, as Chandra Rama Rao discovered to her distress recently. A paraplegic since her school days - she injured her spine in a fall while sleep - walking - Chandra qualified as a chartered accountant and joined the Central Bank of India as an internal auditor in 1971. Confinement to a wheelchair did not prevent her from undertaking arduous tours and she rose to become chief manager. But in July 1987 she was denied promotion to assistant general manager and the bank Chairman M.N. Goiporia told her she was not selected because her mobility was in doubt. "I told him I had done everything every other manager had done and more." Ultimately she resigned. "I could have fought and got my promotion but that meant fighting for every subsequent promotion." She did not think it was worth the trouble. "She is less handicapped than her fat colleagues who have hypertension and heart disease," says her sister Dr Shakuntala Dawesar. But fortunately for Chandra, her case was highlighted by a newspaper and came to the notice of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Chidambaram. "There is no reason Chandra Rao should not have been promoted if she was otherwise fit," said S.N. Menon, joint secretary in the Social Welfare Ministry. Chidambaram, on his part, sought an explanation from the bank and, not satisfied with the reply, referred the case to the director of public grievances in the cabinet secretariat, an ombudsman - like officer whose recommendations are normally binding on the Government. So Chandra Rao could get her promotion after all. Her experience, and that of Rajeswara Rao and Sanjay Bhatnagar, proves that whenever the handicapped have the will, the Government has to help find them away. -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. 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