News

Volume 7 Issue 3 - February 01, 2010

D.P.O.D. & N.C.P.E.D.P. tie up for a project on implementation of U.N.C.R.P.D.

D.N.I.S. News Network, India: National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (N.C.P.E.D.P.) and Disabled People’s Organisation Denmark (D.P.O.D.) have tied up for a 3 year project titled ‘Improving the rights of persons with disabilities in India - Advocating for the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (U.N.C.R.P.D.)’.

The thrust areas of the project would be implementation of Articles 33 and 31 of U.N.C.R.P.D. Article 33 pertains to setting up of a focal point for monitoring the implementation of the Convention and Article 31 pertains to enumeration of disabled population.

N.C.P.E.D.P. has been continuously lobbying for the focal point to be set up in the Prime Minister’s Office (P.M.O.). This demand was also placed before the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh when a delegation of National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (N.C.R.P.D.) – India led by Convenor, Javed Abidi, met him on July 25. The P.M.O. is now directly monitoring 22 Ministries.

The project will also support efforts towards ensuring that disability is accurately enumerated in the upcoming Census of 2011. It may be mentioned that disability was included in the last Census of 2001. However, there were reports from across the country that the question was not even asked, that no awareness was created amongst the masses, and that the enumerators were neither trained nor sensitized. As a result, Census of 2001 came up with an inaccurate count of only 2.13 percent disabled people. The count was so low that even the Government was embarrassed. “A serious deficiency in the Census data occurred,” they admitted in the XIth Five Year Plan.