| S K Rungta, General Secretary, National Federation of the Blind, J L Kaul, Secretary General, All India Confederation of the Blind, jointly inform the press that Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment constituted a Committee to suggest a draft of a bill to replace the existing Act on the rights of Persons with Disabilities with a view to harmonize legislative provisions with UNCRPD. This Committee has been working for last about a year and majority of its members including the chairperson are non disabled persons. It submitted a preliminary draft for consultation with stake holders and the Govt. facilitated State Consultations on the said draft at 19 places and a legal consultation with an expenditure of about 30 lacs. The consensus that emerged from these consultations was that almost all the important provisions were required to be reformulated. However, the legal consultant has now almost finalized the draft and circulated to the members for adoption in its final meeting to be held on 21, 22 June of 2011 at Indian Spinal Injury Centre, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, completely ignoring the suggestions given by stake holders in these State Consultations. The suggestions given by us have also been completely ignored and even the Committee has acted to the detriment of the interest of the blind, for example the Committee has chosen to give 1% reservation to the blind and the low vision with the proviso to distribute it equally to the extent of .5% among them thereby making it virtually impossible for the blind to get benefit of reservation at least 4-5 years in a given department. Similarly, the Committee has also broadened the definition of the low vision which would again put the blind to the disadvantageous position in the matter of resource sharing.
We, therefore, reject this draft and have sent a letter to the Chairperson to allow our delegation to express our viewpoint before the Committee Members (Copy enclosed), failing which we shall have Dharna at Indian Spinal Injury Center, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, on 21st June, 2011 at 10.00am against anti blind and arbitrary act of the Committee. |
