> > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Meenakshi B. <[email protected]> > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2019 at 17:55 > Subject: Release - Interim Budget for Persons with Disabilities >
> Greetings From Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice! > > Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice is a Disabled People’s > Organisation working from Chennai. We focus on advocacy, knowledge building > and advocacy on the issues concerning persons with disability. We engage in > legal harmonisation. We use budget and policy analysis as a tool for our > activities. > > This is the preliminary analysis on the Interim Budget from the lens of > persons with disabilities. > > Thanks & Regards > Meenakshi > Coordinator Projects > Equals, Centre for Promotion of Social Justice > Email: [email protected] / [email protected] [image: Equals logo with text : Highlights - Persons with Disabilities in Union Interim Budget 2019-2020] 1 Feb 2019 MEDIA RELEASE Interim Union Budget 2019-2020 & Indians with disabilities “This is not an interim budget, but a vehicle for the nation’s development. Development became a Jan Andolan (people's movement) under the present Government”- Budget Speech. THIS people's movement of development has left people with disabilities behind! NO mention of inclusion under infrastructural development, rural and urban development, skill development or employment. The President’s address has mentioned the physical coverage of couple of programmes of the Union Government such as distribution of assistive devices through camps, accessibility of Government buildings and railway stations and development of the sign language dictionary. The Government has made commitments under the 3 Year Action Agenda prepared by NITI AYOG such as institutional reforms, cross sectoral recognition of the issues concerning persons with disabilities apart from the need for reframing the existing schemes and the corresponding budget allocation institutional reforms, cross sectoral recognition of the issues concerning persons with disabilities apart from the need for reframing the existing schemes and the corresponding budget allocation. The priorities include estimates of persons with disabilities, improving accessibility through the Accessible India Campaign, strengthening education, enhancing employability, establishing regional centres of the Rehabilitation Council of India, centres for disability sports, Indian Sign language institute and 20 spinal cord injury centres. The agenda also commits for enhanced supply of assistive devices and issue of universal ID cards. However, the action agenda re-emphasised the constitutional mandate of the states to secure right to education, work and public assistance within the economic capacity and level of development. Fulfilment of these commitments find no mention in the Budget Speech. Further, it is to be noted that under the AIC so far funds have been released to retrofit only 56% of the total buildings for which access audit has been completed and reported and only 25% of the government websites selected are made accessible. Only 8.4% of the buses of 58 SRTC is made accessible. For all the commitments vide the three-year action agenda, the allocation towards persons with disabilities that could be disaggregated remains constant at 0.03% to the overall disbursement of the Union Government from 2014-15 to 2016-17 and follows a decreasing trend from the financial year 2017-18 onwards at 0.02%. At the Union Level since 2014 -15 there has been huge unspent balances from the budget estimates proposed. Given the huge diversity in spending across States on specific expenditure towards persons with disabilities, Union’s contribution remains at only 16% in the year 2017-18 and has not considered supplementing states based on their growth and development. Both the three-year action agenda and the Strategy for New India @ 75 by NITI Ayog document talks elaborately on the need for data and statistics, no effort has been made to disaggregate administrative and financial data that allows for effective monitoring and accountability. Given that the next census is approaching, there is no movement towards adopting Internationally comparable tool for collecting data on persons with disabilities. Globally Washington group questions for disability data is recognised as an effective tool. Though tax relief to families and individuals with disabilities almost equals allocation to the department for the empowerment of persons with disabilities, there is need to respond to the question who benefits out of this? This is critical when nearly 79.9% of the families living with less than Rs.150/ day without adjusting to the additional cost of disability About Equals Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice <http://www.equalscpsj.org/> ( www.equalscpsj.org) is a Disabled People’s Organisation working from Chennai. We focus on advocacy, knowledge building and advocacy on the issues concerning persons with disability. We engage in legal harmonisation. We use budget and policy analysis as a tool for our activities. Contact: Amba Salelkar, Meenakshi Balasubramanian, Sudha Ramamoorthy Email : [email protected] http://bit.ly/1920budget-release -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. ------------- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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