Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016

7. Does the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 ensure effective mechanism for empowerment and inclusion of the intended beneficiaries in the society? Discuss. (150 words)       10 M

Ans. The rights of persons with Disability Act, 2016 has replaced the persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 to comply with the United Nations Convention on Rights with disability. Further, the new law will not only enhance the rights and entitlements of Divyang but also provide effective mechanism for ensuring their empowerment and true inclusion into the society in a satisfactory manner.

The salient features of the Act are

(i)     Disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept.

(ii)   The types of disabilities have been increased from existing 7 to 21 and the Central Government will have the power to add more types of disabilities.

(iii) Special courts will be designated in each district to handle cases concerning violation of rights of PWDs.

(iv) In addition, the government has been authorised to notify any other category of specified disability.

(v)   Additional benefits such as reservation in higher education, government jobs,

reservation in allocation of land, poverty alleviation schemes etc have been provided for persons with benchmark disabilities and those with high support needs.

(vi) Every child with benchmark disability between the age group of 6 and 18 years shall have the right to free education.

(vii)                       For strengthening the Prime Minister's Accessible India Campaign, stress has been given to ensure accessibility in public

buildings (both government and private) in a prescribed time-frame.

(viii)                     Reservation in vacancies in government establishments has been increased from 3%to 4% for certain persons or class of persons with benchmark disability.

However, the Act has been criticized as it does not effectively deal with the issue of financial resources for enforcing these guidelines. It also misses on providing special provisions to assist persons with mental illness.

Still these provisions have the capacity to really change the life of disabled people living in India. However the results will totally depend on how these provisions will be implemented by the executive.