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Dimensions of Disability in India

Kishor Bhanushali
Assistant Professor- Economics
Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute
Ahmedabad

The problem of disability is gaining more and more importance all over the world. The planners of India very well understand the significance of the problem. The government of India and also state governments have framed various policies for persons with physical disabilities: reservation jobs, concession facilities in traveling, special training institutions etc.

At the same time there is a network of NGOs working for the development of persons with physical disabilities. The present paper aims analyzing various dimensions of disability in India. The author to understand various dimension of disability in India analyzes disability data collected by Census of India 2001.

Present paper aim at analyzing the dimension of disability as reported by Census of India 2001. The first part of the paper deals with the definitional aspects of disability in India. The second part deals with various dimensions of disability, and part three with disability and work. Conclusions of the paper are given in final part of the paper.

Introduction

The problem of disability is gaining more and more importance all over the world. The planners of India also very well understand the significance of the problem. The government of India and also the state governments have framed various policies for persons with physical disabilities:

Scholarship
Concessional assistive devices
Job reservation
Concession facilities in traveling
Special training institutions
Tax benefits
Loan for business at concessional rate etc.

At the same time there is a network of NGOs working for the development of persons with physical disabilities. The Census of India collected information on disability since its inception in 1872. The questionnaire of the 1872 Census, called the `House Register' included questions not only on the physically disabled but also the mentally disabled and persons affected by leprosy.

Collection of information on infirmities was continued in each of the successive decadal censuses of 1881 to 1931. However, due to the serious doubts expressed by the then Census Commissioners about the authenticity and quality of data collected on disabled population, the enumeration of physically disabled persons was discontinued during the 1941 Census.

It was felt that question on disabled population did not lend themselves to a census enquiry since these did not seem to provide accurate data due to variety of reasons particularly due to the social stigma attached with this characteristic. After a gap of 50 years or four decennial Censuses since 1931, a question on disabilities was again canvassed at the 1981 Census.

Since 1981 had been proclaimed as the "International Year for the Disabled" it resulted in inclusion of a question on disability during censuses the world over and India was no exception to it. However, the question on only three broad categories of physical disabilities viz. `Totally Blind', `Totally Dumb' and `Totally Crippled' was canvassed during the House listing Operations of 1981 Census.

When the results of 1981 Census were finally available, it was felt that there was considerable under enumeration of physically handicapped persons. The 1981 Census results also supported the views expressed by the earlier Census Commissioners that ordinarily by their sheer design and nature; the Census Operations do not lend themselves to the determination or identification of people with special social and infrequent characteristics of this nature.

It was felt that the enumeration and determination of the physically handicapped and their characteristics continued to be beyond the scope and capacity of Census Operations due to the complexity of the definition of disability and inherent reservations of the population to share this information with the enumerator usually a local government official.

There was the additional limitation of the absence of high-pitched publicity on disability, level of awareness in the public and weak background, settings in terms of administrative and political milieu and virtually no support from the NGOs that hampered collection of data on disability. The question on disability was not canvassed again at the 1991 Census of India.

With the pressure from the network of NGOs coupled with international agencies and obligation under Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995, the question on disability was again incorporated in census of India 2001. Present paper aim at analyzing the dimension of disability as reported by Census of India 2001.

The first part of the paper deals with the definitional aspects of disability in India Second part deals with various dimensions of disability, and part three with disability and work. Conclusions of the paper are given in final part of the paper.

Defining Disability

In India different definitions of disability are introduced for various purposes and, as such, they have been based on various criteria. No single standard exists in India in order to evaluate disability. In common parlance, different terms such as disabled, handicapped, crippled, physically challenged are used inter-changeably.

Census of India 2001 document mentioned "Defining and measuring disability is a complex issue and it is not easy to communicate these concepts during the census process, in which only a limited amount of questioning time is possible to be spent with a household for obtaining detailed information on every individual."

With regard to definitions adopted by PWD Act Census of India stated "the concepts and definitions of disabilities coupled with measuring its extent and its types contained in the PWD Act, 1995 were found to be extremely difficult to canvass even in normal circumstances assuming people had time, were willing and forthcoming to share this information and there was an expert investigator to elicit this information."

Census therefore used its own version of definitions of disabilities Census of India defines five types of disabilities viz. seeing, speech, hearing, movement, and mental. Seeing disability includes a person who cannot see at all (has no perception of light) or has blurred vision even with the help of spectacles will be treated as visually disabled.

A person with proper vision only in one eye will also be treated as visually disabled. Where a person may have blurred vision and had no occasion to test whether her/his eyesight would improve by using spectacles. Such persons would be treated as visually disabled. Speech disabled means a person will be recorded as having speech disability, if she/he is dumb.

Similarly persons whose speech is not understood by a listener of normal comprehension and hearing, she/he will be considered to having speech disability. Persons who stammer but whose speech is comprehensible will not be classified as disabled by speech.

Hearing disability includes a person who cannot hear at all (deaf), or can hear only loud sounds will be considered as having hearing disability. A person who is able to hear, using hearing aid will not be considered as disabled under this category. If a person cannot hear through one ear but her/his other ear is functioning normally, should be considered having hearing disability.

A person, who lacks limbs or is unable to use the limbs normally, will be considered having movement disability. Absence of a part of a limb like a finger or a toe will not be considered as disability. However, absence of all the fingers or toes or a thumb will make a person disabled by movement. If any part of the body is deformed, the person will also be treated as disabled and covered under this category.

A person, who cannot move herself/himself without the aid of another person or without the aid of stick, etc., will be treated as disabled. Similarly, a person would be treated as disabled in movement if she/he is unable to move or lift or pick up any small article placed near her/him.

A person may not be able to move normally because of problems of joints like arthritis and has to invariable limp while moving, will also be considered to have movement disability. A person who lacks comprehension appropriate to her/his age will be considered as mentally disabled.

This would not mean that if a person is not able to comprehend her/his studies appropriate to her/his age and is failing to qualify her/his examination is mentally disabled. Mentally retarded and insane persons would be treated as mentally disabled. A mentally disabled person may generally depend on her/his family members for performing daily routine.

Dimensions disability in india

Types of Disabilities

Census of India 2001 identified five types of disabilities as defined above. Number of disabled in each type of disabilities is depicted in table below, which shows total number of disabled in India at 21,906,769 which constitute more than 2 percent of total population.

Disabled in India by types of Disabilities
Types of Disabilities	Number of Disabled	Percentage
Seeing	10634881	48.55
Speech	1640868	7.49
Hearing	1261722	5.76
Movement	6105477	27.87
Mental	2263821	10.33
Total	21906769	100.00

Source: Census of India 2001

This proportion is high when compared to data collected by national sample survey organization in its 58th round in the year 2002, but very lower than estimates of World health Organization and United Nations according to which around 10 percent of population in underdeveloped and developing countries are disabled.

Classification of disabled in India shows that nearly half total disabled are having seeing disabilities (48.55 percent) followed by movement disabilities (27.87 percent). Ten percent of total disabled are mentally disabled.

Disabilities by Sex

The classification of disabled in different categories by sex shows higher rate of prevalence of disabilities among males as compared to females, especially in the case of movement and mental disabilities the proportion of male is much higher as compared to females. The reasons for this kind of trend need to be studied.
View table on Classification of Disabilities by Sex.

Disabilities by Residence

View table on Classification of Disabled by Residence.

Classification of disabled by residence shows that majority of disabled are living in the rural areas. 81.07 percent of people with hearing disabilities, 76.24 percent with movement disabilities, and 75.80 percent with speech disabilities reside in rural areas.

Lack of medical facilities, large family size, concentration of medical facilities in urban localities, etc. are the major reasons for this trend. The paradoxical situation here is concentration of organizations working for disabled in urban centers.

Disability and Literacy

Education is very important for all, especially for disabled. Education provides opportunities for employment and advancement. Literacy level among disabled of different categories is depicted in table below.

View table on Literacy Rate among different categories of Disabled.

Few points are worth noting in above table about the literacy level among different categories of disabled. Firstly, literacy level is high among movement disabled as compared to other categories. This is due to the reason that they face only one barrier i.e. mobility in education and they can easily be incorporated in regular school.

Neither special teacher nor special books and other facilities are needed for them. Movement barriers can easily be removed by creating ramps in schools. Secondly, literacy level is higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas because most of the educational institutions, especially special schools for disabled, are located in urban centers.

Non-governmental organizations working for education of disabled are also located in urban centers. Thirdly, Literacy level is low among disabled females as compared to their male counterpart. Lowest literacy rate is observed among rural disabled female. The reason for this kind of trend lies in the social mind setup, especially rural areas, where education among girls is not given important especially if she is disabled.

Parents generally hesitate and also worried to send their disabled girls to schools. Fourthly, among different categories of disabilities, literacy rate is lowest among peoples with mental disabilities because of lack of sufficient educational facilities such as special schools and special teachers for mentally challenged.

Disability and Work

Work is defined by census 2001 as participation in any economically productive activity. Work may be physical or mental in nature. It involves not only actual work but also effective supervision and direction of work. Work may be paid or unpaid.

According to above definition any persons engaged in economic activity whether paid or unpaid is called worker. Disabled people are also classified as worker and non-workers.

Work Participation Rate

Work Participation rate is percentage of workers to total population. Work participation rate among different categories of disabled calculated from census 2001 data is given in table below.

View table on Work Participation Rates among different categories of Disabled.

Following points are worth noting in above table. Firstly, total work participation rate among disabled is 34.49 percent, 44.81 and 29.55 percent among males and females respectively. Secondly, work participation rate is low among females as compared to males and in urban areas as compared to rural areas.

High work participation rate in rural areas are due to the fact that agriculture, which is the main occupation in rural areas has a capacity to absorb large chunk of disabled both educated and uneducated. Thirdly, lowest work participation rate is observed among urban disabled females. One reason for this is that employment opportunities in urban area male dominated and favours educated.

Low education level among females is main constraint in their employment. Fourthly, among different categories of disabled, work participation rate is lowest among people with mental disabilities. Lack of education and employment opportunities for mentally disabled along with negative attitude of the employer to employ mentally disabled are reasons for this trend.

Classification of Disabled Workers in different categories of Work

Census of India 2001 classifies workers in four different categories i.e. cultivators, agricultural labourer, household industry worker and other workers. Cultivator is a person engaged as employer, single worker or family worker in cultivation of crop (except plantation crops such as tea, coffee, rubber, coconut and betel nuts) on land owned or held from government or private persons or institution for payment in money, kind or share.

Cultivation includes supervision or direction of cultivation. Agricultural labourer is a person who works in another person's land for wages in cash/kind or share crop. Such a person has no risk in cultivation, but merely works in another person's land for wages and has no right of lease or contract on land on which he works.

Household industry is an industry conducted by one or more members of the household at home or within the village in rural areas and within the precinct of the house where the household lives in urban areas. It should be smaller than the scale of a registered factory and should be engaged in manufacturing, processing, servicing and repairs of goods.

All workers not falling in any of the above categories are classified as other workers. Following table shows the classification of disabled workers in different categories. It shows that majority of disabled worker are engaged in agricultural occupations either as cultivators or agriculture labourer. Household industry, which has potentials of absorbing large number of disabled employs less than 5 percent of total employed disabled.

View table on Classification of Disabled Workers in different categories.

Conclusions

Persons with disabilities include very heterogeneous group of peoples, so it becomes difficult to given any definition, which is acceptable to all. The proportion of disabled in India as per census 2001 is 2.13 percent of total population. Classification of disabled population by different categories of disabilities shows that the proportions of people with seeing disabilities are highest among disabled followed by movement disability.

Prevention is better than cure, and old say is more important in this context also. More concentration is needed in health care facilities, especially in rural areas. Classification of total disabled population by residence shows that nearly 75 percent of total disabled lives in rural areas where as most of the governmental and non-governmental organizations working for disabled are urban based.

Medical and health care facilities, being profit oriented instead of service, are also concentrated in urban areas. Because of this differences services are not reaching to all disabled. More organizations working for disabled should be there are rural areas. Organizations working in urban areas are required to expand their horizon of work to rural areas.

Literacy rate is fairly good among disabled which points towards awareness among the disabled and their parents about importance of education. At the same time it shows positive results of the efforts made by the government and non government organizations in providing educational facilities to disabled.

Various studies conducted by various organizations pointed out that the proportion of disabled with professional and technical education is very low. Most of these educated disabled are having education up to school level, which is not sufficient to compete in today's globally competitive world.

What is required is to provide facilities for higher education and vocational training. Among different categories of disabled, educational level of people with movement disability is high compared to other categories because of the fact that they face only one barriers i.e. movement in education which can be easily solved by removing constructional barriers.

Secondly the education level among disabled in rural areas is low compared to urban areas because of the concentration of educational facilities in urban areas. More educational facilities should be created in rural areas to increase the education among rural disabled.

The major barrier to employment by the people with disabilities in our society continues to be attitudinal barriers; stereotypical thinking and assumption about what people with disabilities can and can't do. The truth is that, the range of abilities of persons within any disabilities group is enormous. We need to get rid of our stereotypical images and view each "individual" as just that "an individual".