What to say, very sad. How they have counted, no clue. And disabled in rural India have again been left out. I just checked what Census 2001 said about the percentage of disability among different disabled groups, and found: ' Among the five types of disabilities on which data was collected, disability In seeing at 48.5% emerged as the top category. Others in sequence were : In movement (27.9%), Mental (10.3%), In speech (7.5%), and In hearing (5.8%).' And when I see 2011 Census initial release, percentage among different disabled categories has changed drastically. I smell some very deep political foul play there. We have failed to get counted and now lets bear the consiquenses. I just visited the website of Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner India, And found these presentations have now been uploaded. • Presentation on Data Disability • Disabled Population by type of Disability,Age and Sex • Disabled Population by type of Disability,Age and Sex For Scheduled Castes • Disabled Population by type of Disability,Age and Sex For Scheduled Tribes Visit: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/default.aspx The latest Census figures on disabilities have shown only a marginal increase in the number of differently-abled people in the country with the figure rising from 21.9 million in 2001 to 26.8 million in 10 years. In percentage terms, it has risen from 2.13 per cent to 2.21 per cent, as per the Census 2011 figures released by the Registrar General of India.
There are 14.9 million men with disabilities as compared to 11.8 million women in the country with the total number of disabled people over 18 million in the rural areas and just 8.1 million enumerated in the urban settings. The percentage of men with disabilities is 2.41 as against 2.01 in women. State-wise data shows, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir have more than 2.51 per cent disabled population whereas in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Meghalaya, Assam and Nagaland, the percentage is less than 1.75. The percentage share of disabled population is higher among males who comprise 55.9 per cent whereas women comprise 44.1 per cent. Social groups wise analysis shows, 2.45 per cent of the total disabled population belong to the Scheduled Castes, 2.05 to the Scheduled Tribes and 2.18 per cent to other than SC/ST. Even among these two social groups, the proportion of men with disabilities is higher as compared to women. Over 5.4 million people have some kind of physical disability, followed by hearing impairment affecting 5.07 million and 5.03 million who have problems with their vision. Just about 2 million have speech disability, and 2 million are affected by mental retardation and other mental illnesses. The proportion of women suffering from seeing, hearing and multiple disabilities is higher than men. Disability in seeing, hearing and movement and multiple disability is more among STs than SCs and others while disability in speech and mental retardation is more among others than SC/ST. Age-wise break-up of the data suggests disability is more among people aged 80 years and above, and the least among children aged up to 4 years. Disability among STs in lower age groups up to 40-49 years is significantly lower than the other social groups whereas in the higher age group (60 plus), it is high among STs. Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/census-reveals-only-marginal-increase-in-the-differentlyabled-population/article5516279.ece Rural disabled undercounted in 2011 Census? Lack of awareness in rural areas regarding the enhanced definition of disability in census 2011 could have led to severe undercounting of the disabled, the bulk of whom reside in rural India. Rural areas account for almost 70% of the population of people with different kinds of disabilities. Yet the increase in the number of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the rural areas is barely 14% compared to a whopping 48% increase in urban areas. This has led experts to conclude that PWDs in rural areas were probably undercounted. This undercounting is believed to have contributed to the disabled population going up to just 26.8 million from 21.9 million in the last census in 2001, i.e. from 2.13% of the population in 2001 to 2.21%. This is in contrast to most neighbouring countries such as China, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where PWDs account for about 4-6% of the population. The 2011 census had made special efforts to ensure that all PWDs were counted and an enhanced definition of disability was used. While census 2001 collected information on only five types of disabilities, in 2011, information on eight types of disabilities was included. The census office had roped in the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and its partners to develop training modules and had involved them in training and sensitising census enumerators. Despite these efforts, the total number seems rather low compared to the estimated 70 million population of PWDs. NCPEDP convenor Javed Abidi said that he was disappointed at how low the numbers were despite all efforts to ensure better coverage. "With the expanded definition of disability, we had expected that it would be at least 4% plus. But just 2.2% is a disappointment. It cannot be a coincidence that the increase was just 14% in rural areas and 48% in urban areas. I guess our campaign was restricted to the urban population, especially metros and state capitals. This is a wake-up call for the disability sector. We have a long way to go in reaching the bulk of the PWDs, who are in rural areas," said Abidi. Not only PWDs, but also local enumerators in rural areas would need more training on how to count PWDs under the enhanced definition for which the government too would need to launch awareness drives among census enumerators in particular and the rural population in general. The disability sector is however elated that, for the first time, census 2011 has yielded data on the population of people with mental illness, mental retardation and those with multiple disabilities and even those with 'other' kinds of disabilities. Earlier, the focus was largely only on visual, locomotor, speech and hearing impairment. Almost half a crore people have been identified with "any other" disability, while over 1.5 million persons with mental retardation or intellectual disability have been identified. The census counted over 7.2 lakh persons with mental illness. The census data also revealed that the scheduled castes had the highest proportion of PWDs in their population, about 2.5% compared to just 2.1% among scheduled tribes and 2.2% among the general population. Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-28/india/45651947_1_enumerators-census-pwds -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Time to meet up again! 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