Jammu and Kashmir is presently conducting its first-ever disability survey to count the total number of persons with disabilities and assess the problems confronting them.
With no up-to-date figures of such persons, the governmenthas been relying on the 2011 Census data that says J&K, population-wise,has the highest number of the persons with disabilities in India.
Disability survey provides a detailed and nuancedinformation about how people with and without disabilities conduct their livesand the difficulties they encounter, regardless of any underlying healthcondition or impairment.
Until now, the social welfare department has not conductedany baseline survey to determine the population of persons with disabilities.
JavaidTak, chairperson Humanity Welfare OrganisationHelpline, has appealed to the persons with disabilities to visit the IntegratedChild Development Service (ICDS) centres and fill the survey forms there.
“The disability survey is being conducted for persons with disabilities by social welfare department through local Anganwadicentres. Those who have ‘no disability certificate’ can also fill the forms. Our census is our identity. Don’t miss the opportunity to retain your identity.
It was the duty of the ICDS workers, but many of them failed to do the survey honestly,” Tak said. According to the last census report, around 3.60 lakh people, nearly three per cent of the state’s population, have some form of disability—2.8 lakh are visually impaired, 0.38 lakh are physically challenged, 0.17 lakh have speech disability and 0.13 lakh have hearing impairment.
Recently, the governor’s administration cleared the Jammuand Kashmir Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2018. The newly proposedlaw, apart from identifying the range of disabilities, proposes free educationfor children with benchmark disabilities as well as measures for effectiveparticipation of the disabled persons in sporting activities.
An official at the social welfare department said, “Thepopulation of disabled people is growing, especially after the unrest of 2016,so there is a dire need of conducting a survey so that we have the exactnumber.”
Commissioner disabilities Iqbal Lone said that they hadrequested the government to provide Rs 36 lakh for the baseline disabilitysurvey. Later, when requested to conduct the survey, the economics andstatistics department said the exercise would cost Rs 4 crore. “So we thoughtthat the social welfare department would carry out the survey and we startedengaging and training anganwadi workers. We constituted nodal officers and nowthe survey is underway.”