Rights of Disabled Persons in India

Basic rights

Some of the basic rights that the Person & with Disabilities are entitled to:

1. Certificate: It is the most basic document that a disabled person should possess in order to avail certain benefits and concessions. The State Medical Boards established under the State governments can issue a disability certificate to any person with more than 40% disability. The concerned person can visit the nearest hospital and will be issued the certificate after the checkup and determination of percentage of disability. The certificate is valid for five years and can be renewed if the disability is temporary and valid for the entire lifetime in case of permanent disability.
2. Travel Concession: Persons with disability are entitled to certain concession in the amount of train tickets bought at the railway counter or online. In some states, such persons can also avail bus ticket concession under State government bus service by showing the disability certificate to the conductor.
3. Pension: People who are above 18 years of age, living below the poverty line and suffering with more than 80% disability and are entitled to the disability pension under the Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme. Various NGOs are dedicated to this cause and they help disabled people to get their disability pension.
4. Guardianship Certificate: Persons with certain disabilities like mental retardation, cerebral palsy etc are in a special situation and would not be able to take important legal decisions once they become adults. Hence a Legal Guardianship Certificate is issued to such disabled person which makes another person his legal guardian who thereby is entitled to take all legal decisions on behalf of the disabled person even after he becomes an adult i.e. completes 18 years of age.
5. Income Tax Concession: Under sections 80DD and 80U of Income Tax Act, 1961, persons with disabilities are also entitled to certain income tax concessions.
6. Employment: In government jobs, 4% of the seats are reserved for persons with disabilities.

Impediments in the Employment Process of people with disability

Some of the impediments that limit employment opportunities for people with physical disabilities:

• Adjustment: Employers and employees need ongoing direction in providing and requesting adjustments, respectively.
• Self-Identification: employees are hesitant to self-identify; however, as federal contractors need this information for compliance with Department of Labor (DOL) regulations.
• Discomfort: Perceptions subsist that people with disabilities are less qualified, which creates discomfort among employers to employ them in their organizations.
• Access to information: Employers are besieged by the amount of information available, but concurrently need more information.
• Motivation: Employers need greater visible acknowledgement for their efforts to employ more individuals with physical disabilities, to persuade continued buy-in and contribution in disability and insertion efforts.

Strategies to ease the impediments

• Change: the management should change perceptions and stereotypes, manager’s focus should be on building a rational, economic business where there is no place for bias, since biases influence perceptions. For example Lemon tree hotel have addressed this impediment through programs and awareness-raising activities that work to change these perceptions.
• Education: the management should educate and inform all the employees and create awareness among employees of the set of practices for increasing disability employment.
• Incentives: motivate with incentives, companies must be acknowledged and rewarded for their progress, as well as individual employees at all levels since they will also respond positively due to incentives.