Disabled must be part of PM’s address and India’s COVID19 strategy: NCPEDP

On behalf of India’s 7 crore disabled people who are impacted by the lockdown, NCPEDP, India’s leading cross disability rights organisation  has  written to the Prime Minister for urgent attention to its matters.

At first the letter lays out the problems of lack of food, information, medical care and mobility.

1. 20% of the country’s poorest are people with disabilities.
2. Almost 70% people with disabilities are unemployed or are engaged in the informal sector living in peri-urban and rural India.
3. People with disabilities are doubly vulnerable to the infection – given their dependence on attendants and caregivers and their use of aids for day to day living.
4. People with disabilities are also the first to be de-proritised during shortage of food and medicines and will have least access to medical care and therapy.
5. They are invariably the last to be contacted and informed – given inaccessibility of communication.
6. People with blood disorders require urgent blood transfusions and are unable to access the same in absence of donors while those with psychosocial disorders are unable to access medicines or counselling.
7. Mobility remains a challenge- even to an ATM or a grocer –  in the absence of accessible implementation of directives like issuance of e-pass etc.
8. Disability cuts across all backgrounds- migrants, farmers, daily wagers to healthcare staff and bureaucrats and have families to support and mouths to feed.
9. People with disabilities have an additional cost of living with a disability that should be factored in while arriving at any compensation for them.

The letter makes the following demands to the Prime Minister for the economic and social wellbeing of India’s citizens living with disabilities.

1. Uniformity in pensions for people with disabilities across states and urgent release of the same.
2. Increase of ex gratia amount as declared by the Government to be increased from Rs. 1000/- to Rs 5000/-.
3. Announcement of an adequate economic package for rehabilitation of persons with disabilities that have been impacted by this lockdown, for them to resume their lives with dignity and independence.
4. Strict enforcement of the ‘Comprehensive Disability Inclusive Guidelines for protection and safety of persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) during COVID 19’ released by the Department for Empowerment of persons with Disabilities.
5. Accessibility plays a key role in inclusion of persons with disabilities and all announcements should be in accessible formats with preferred use of electronic media such as radio and television. The Guidelines issued today are inaccessible and even point 9 which focuses on education during the lockdown period fails to include accessibility mandates for students with disabilities.

The letter urges PM Modi to send out a strong message to all people concerned that in this attempt to provide all possible safeguards against COVID 19 no one is left behind.

– NCPEDP, Delhi