Dear Madam, The PWDEA act was enacted in year 1995. Though psycho social disabled due to Mental illness was included in the act of 1995, the bureaucracy of the Social Justice Ministry could get the scale for the evaluation of percentage of this disability formulated only in the year 2002. This also only due to the ERAWADI death tragedy because under Ms.Menaka Gandhi’s stewardship of the Ministry and under the Secretary Gowri Chatterjee IAS ;street dogs were given more importance and more funds allocated than Disabled due to Mental illness. An Amendment Committee, headed by Dr. Amita Dhanda, ( Mother of Mental health laws)was appointed by the Government within three years of the notification of the Act of 1995. The Committee comprised of Shri S.K. Rungta, Merry Barua, J.P. Gadkari, Aloka Guha, R. Ramachandran, Dr. D.K. Menon and Surrender Saini. This Committee submitted its report in 1999 basically to include” Autism” in the PWDEA act 1995 because this group of activists did not want “Autism” to be part of “”Mental illness disabled”” nor “mental retarded” disabled though DSMIV and ICD 10 said otherwise. So this committee created an entirely different yardstick to measure disabled due to Mental illness which also satisfied the powerful Mental retarded group and also the Psychiatrists who support them.This gave names of Psychiatric illness like Schizophrenia,Manic depression,OCD etc instead of using the WHODASS scale available at that time to measure Psychiatric disability.It is similar to saying blindness to be measured by Cataract,Glaucoma,retinal detachment etc etc or Orthopaedic handicapped as chandra surcoma,clubfeet,frostbite,etc etc.But then the main focus of this committee was to satisfy the Autism lobby to be included in PWDEA act separately from ICD 10 definition. though they were already part of the National trust act 1998. This made the psychiatric disabled as Disabled within the overall disabled community and most of them begging without knowing how to beg.Now a days one doesnot see blind,lame beggars in the beggar homes. I find the new amendment committee is resurrecting this mothballed 1999 report of the Amendment committee which was made under the NDA regime of Ms.Menaka Gandhi. When the IDEAS scale is already notified by the MOSJE, what is the need for names of psychiatric illnesses? A Schizophrenic may be getting his Nobel like Prof Nash while a severely depressed may not even get out of his bed.So the yardstick should be like any other disability and percentage which measures impairment or on the basis of activity limitation not names of illnesses. Also from 1995 (PWDEA act)and from 1998 when RCI act was enacted both these organisations have NOT i repeat NOT bothered to ENUMERATE seperately disabled due to Psychiatric illness. Their numbers are clubbed in the “MENTAL HANDICAPPED” GROUP while the Benefits went EXCLUSIVELY TO “Mental retarded” group as you can see from the money spent on INDIVIDUAL DISABILITIES from the year 1995 till 2010. and also new institutions established by RCI Even today neither the RCI nor the Ministry of SJE has asked NSS to enumerate seperately the Psychiatric disabled to find the numbers on which the funds of the Ministry are allotted. Please see MOSJE website for the numbers of disabled. I have copy pasted it here. Disability-wiseDisability-wise number of persons with disabilities in the country as per the Census-2001S. NoState/UTVisual disabilitySpeech disabilityHearing disabilityLocomotor disabilityMental disabilityTotal
RCI has not even started an institution exclusively for the disabled due to psychiatric Disability like it has done for all other SIX DISABILITIES. When I read the consensus document I find the arm of the Amendment committee of 1999 under Ms.Menaka Gandhi and not a fresh approach which will give justice to those who were out of the purview of the Ministry’s funding from 1995.When cross disability activists ask for carry forward of disability quota in jobs, the same principle should apply in case of Psycho social disabled as far as fund allocation is concerned. The Menaka Gandhi led bureaucracy even constituted a disability commission under Shri Javed Abidi which had 5 members from only the above 5 disabilities thus disabling a section of the disabled community.Mercifully it was abolished by the new UPA government. Madam the law which you will enact will be implemented by the bureaucracy of the MOSJE ( like Secys,Directors,section officers,desk officers and assistants) and it follows the Government procedures and not loftier Human rights ideas of UNCRPD .The consensus paper is not clear about the agency which will do the enumeration like whether it will be Census commissioner or NSS or some other agency?With Adhar coming into play, it will be worthwhile to have UID issued with atleast the existing disabilities with existing act. Hope when you frame the new law, you will take into account some of these.concerns. with kind regards. "Greatness lies not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall"Captain Johann samuhanand, BANGALORE INDIA91 80 42023252 www.captainjohann.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers
