News

Volume 6 Issue 4 - August 01, 2009

3rd Meeting of N.C.R.P.D. - India held

D.N.I.S. News Network, India: The 3rd meeting of the National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - India (N.C.R.P.D. - India) was held on July 24 and 25 in New Delhi.

The Committee had detailed discussion on varied issues. Javed Abidi, Convenor, N.C.R.P.D. - India welcomed the members and apprised them of the activities since the last meeting of the Committee.

“Time is on our side. A lot of things are happening in the sector. We have been working on Access Guidelines and a draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility and also easy and time bound access to disability certificate. If these go through, they will be path breaking achievements,” said Abidi.

“The most positive sign is that we had officials from the concerned Ministries at our Core Group meetings,” he added.

The Committee had a detailed discussion on Census 2011 and on the proposed amendments to the Disability Act.

The Committee decided on having a wider consultation on Amendments and if a consolidated Act would serve a better purpose instead of the four Acts that presently deal with disability.

On the issue of Census 2011, the Committee agreed that the sector needs to lobby towards it from now itself.

The Committee also discussed the shadow report on U.N.C.R.P.D. It was decided that it would be better to analyse the implementation article wise. Organisations could send in their shadow report either individually to the government or a collated version could also be sent.

Shilpi Kapoor, Convenor, Core Group on Communication and Information Technology presented the draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility and also apprised the Committee on the meeting of the Core Group held on July 23. Shivani Gupta, Convenor, Core Group on Access, talked about the proposed access guidelines and Radhika Alkazi, Convenor, Core Group on Health, spoke about their first meeting on July 23.

The U.N.C.R.P.D. - India website that N.C.P.E.D.P. is working on was also unveiled by Rama Chari, Director, Disability and Equal Opportunity Centre (D.E.O.C.) at the meet.

Javed Abidi, J.P. Gadkari and Poonam Natarajan spoke about the recent Supreme Court judgement on the pregnancy of a mentally retarded girl in the Open House session. The next meeting of N.C.R.P.D. - India is expected during October - November before the World Disability Day.