New Delhi : "There should be an Advisor on Disability attached to the Prime Minister's Office like there is one in the USA government," said Former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Justice AP Shah, while discussing the bureaucratic problems of ensuring inclusive education to persons with disabilities in the society.

Justice Shah was addressing a two-day 'National Meet of NGOs - Rejuvenating Partnership' recently in the campus of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

Rehabilitation Council of India convened the conference in collaboration with IGNOU's National Centre for Disability Studies (NCDS).

The NCDS is the first centre for disability studies of all those at other Central Universities of the country.

The conference was addressed by Chairperson of National Trust, Ms Poonam Natarajan, Chairman of the RCI, Maj. General Ian Cardozo, AVSM, SM and Vice Chancellor, V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai.

Justice Shah expressed anxiety over the huge problems of the Disabled persons, who number over 10% of the entire population of the world (over 600 million) and two-thirds of them are in developing countries.

Common experiences of the persons with disabilities are social exclusion, discrimination against them at school and higher education, prejudices, and marginalization.
Referring to the guidelines of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), to which India is a signatory and which India is duty-bound to implement in all parts, Justice Shah said that, "The country needs to bring in laws ensuring disability rights and not stop by what it ‘endeavours’ for the disabled people as envisaged in the Persons with Disability (PWD) Act 1995."

"This Act has some positive aspects, but creates deficits for the individual disabled person," he said, adding that the 1995 Act needs to be amended adequately to ensure rights of the disabled persons of equal education, treatment, wages etc., at par the people who are not disabled.

"The distress and humiliation the persons with disabilities suffer in this country is something which disturbs our conscience of inclusive governance," he said, "The country needs to call for a new right-based approach to ensure social inclusiveness of the disabled."

Social exclusion of the disabled is also a national loss of talents, who can be groomed into becoming great contributors to various domains of knowledge, he said, adding, "I can cite a number of great mathematicians of the time today who are the world famous mathematicians."

Earlier, Dr Bhushan Punani, Executive Director, Blind Peoples Association, Ahmedabad, drew Justice Shah's attention to the fact that a few thousand crore of rupees are allocated every year by the Planning Commission to various state and Central government agencies for extending all kinds of support and social inclusive activities for persons with disabilities.

Most of these allocated funds return to the exchequer unspent, and that tells a sad story about how the Indian bureaucracy and the NGOs function.

The NGOs should be able to file their applications for funding according to the government specifications, if they cannot they will not get the funds.

"Therefore, the NGOs should work in harmony with the government systems and their approach should be the path of harmony and not of revolting or confrontation," he advised.

The RCI Chairman Maj Gen Cardozo suggested that for getting proper educators to educate and train the disabled persons, particularly children, the NCERT should be able to recommend for the teachers at NGOs remuneration equal to regular schools, and not below that, as is the practice.

For ensuring inclusive education to the Disabled, special teachers are required in adequate numbers and to attract committed and good teachers, their salary structures must be made logically proper, he commented.

Maj Gen Cardozo mentioned three categories of special teachers - A for those who can teach students with three types of disabilities, B for those who can teach two types and C for those who can teach at least one category disabled.

Addressing the problems of educating and training the disabled, Prof Pillai said that IGNOU has its doors open to the NGOs working in the areas of Disabled for all supports.

"We know the problems and we also know the solutions. What we need to work upon is how to implement the solutions to the problems. If we have the conviction, we can do it," he said.