India lacks effective financing for disabled people: report

From D Ravi Kanth
Geneva, Jun 9 (PTI) Millions of disabled people in
India, drawn from the poorest sections of the society, receive
only a pittance from the government's social welfare budget -
as compared to billions of rupees granted to cricket and the
corporate sector through generous fiscal sops, a report says.
"In India, in 2005-2006, the spending on the welfare
of people with disabilities - which focused on support to
national disability institutions, non-government organisations
providing services and spending on assistive devices-
represented 0.05 per cent of Ministry of Social Justice and
Welfare allocations," says the new report jointly released
today by the World Health Organisation and the World Bank.
"The lack of effective financing for support- or its
distribution within a country- is a major obstacle to
sustainable services," says the report on 'World Disability'.
It said that India, which grants billions of rupees to
cricket and the corporate sector through generous fiscal sops,
has a huge number of disabled people to invest sufficient
funding and expertise to unlock their vast potential.
"More than one billion people are estimated to live
with some form of disability," the report says, calling on
governments to scale up the assistance for the disabled people
so to provide access to mainstream services and unlock the
vast potential.
Consequently, the disabled people have lower
educational achievements, reduced economic participation,
higher rates of poverty, and increased dependency and
restricted participation.
"We must do more to break the barriers which segregate
people with disabilities, in many cases forcing them to the
margins of society," said Margaret Chan, WHO director-general.
Part of the problem in India, says the report, is lack
of coordination between different NGOs or agencies that serve
different groups of impaired people.
It says the National Trust Act which is created due to
sustained campaign for the rights of disabled people has
produced collaboration among a range of NGOs.
However, the government has to do much more in terms
of tackling several disabilities, particular leprosy as home
to 2/3rds of the world's people affected by leprosy.
Besides, India also has the highest number of people
suffering from non-communicable chronic diseases such as
diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders, cancer,
and respiratory illnesses that have profound effects on
disability.
"We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to
participation for people with disabilities, and to invest
sufficient funding and expertise to unlock their vast
potential," says Prof Stephen Hawking, renowned theoretical
physicist, who suffers from a major disability.
Disabled people encounter a range of barriers in their
daily lives such as inadequate policies and standards,
negative attitudes, lack of provision of services, problems
with service delivery, and inadequate funding.