The Hindu : Kerala News : 2.7 per cent of State's population is disabled

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 26, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

2.7 per cent of State's population is disabled

By R. Ramabhadran Pillai

KOCHI, DEC. 25. Around 2.7 per cent of the population of Kerala is disabled. The disabilities include chronic fits, strange behaviour, and difficulty in moving around, seeing, hearing, learning and feeling.

There are more women among the disabled in the State. Out of a total of 8,66,598 disabled, 4,45,511 are females and 4,21,088 males.

The figures based on the 2001 Census have been released by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), a Delhi-based non-Government Organisation.

The number of disabled people (98,793) is the highest in Malappuram. Thiruvananthapuram district (88,044) people is in the second place and Ernakulam (84,333) is third.

There are 1,21,324 people in the State with vision problems. Here again, Malappuram has the largest number of people with the problem - 13,831. Thiruvanathapuram has 12,326 and Ernakulam 11,807 people in this category.

District-wise pattern

The district-wise pattern exists in cases of difficulty to move around. There are 3,72,637 people with disability of this kind. Malappuram has 42,481 people in this category and Thiruvananthapuram 37,859. Ernakulam occupies third position with 36,263 people with moving disability. Notably, 43 per cent of the disabled population in the State belongs to this category. A total of 1.17 per cent of the population in the State have difficulty

in moving around.

As many as 89,260 persons have chronic fits. This is 10.3 per cent of the disabled population and 0.28 per cent of the total population in the State.

Considering the national scenario, India has about 70 million disabled people, says Rama Chari, senior programme officer, NCPEDP. Education of the disabled is a big challenge and many universities have a poor record of admitting children with impairment, according to her. It is significant that Parliament had signed Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, she says.

A study conducted by NCPEDP revealed that out of 7,13,167 students in 52 universities, only 694 were disabled. This accounts for a mere 0.1 per cent while 3 per cent of the seats are to be reserved for the disabled. In fact, the organisation sought information from 119 universities across the country, but only 52 responded.

Healthy trend

Seven universities categorically mentioned that they do not admit students with disability, she says. But the Osmania University in Hyderabad projected a healthy trend by giving opportunities to the disabled. Out of 60 students with disabilities admitted by the university, 13 had orthopaedic disabilities and 3 had visual disability; while 23 had hearing disability, 21 had mental disability.

Among the universities that responded to the queries, the top three that had admitted those with disabilities are the Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh (208 students), Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh (202) and Kurukshetra University in Haryana (72).

Student population

An inquiry regarding the number of the disabled in 96 colleges revealed that the percentage of disabled students was a mere 0.52 per cent of the total student population. Colleges with a percentage of 2.5 and above of students with disabilities were the Rajapalayam Raju's College in Tamil Nadu, Government Autonomous College at Kalahandi in Orissa, and Malangiri College in Orissa. With 35 disabled students, 100 teaching staff and a total of 1,984 students, Farook College, Calicut stood out in the study on the disabled.

In the study conducted in mainstream schools, out of the 89 respondent schools, only 382 students with disabilities were enrolled. Here again, only 0.51 per cent of the total student population comprised disabled students.

About 24.1 per cent of disabled students were those with visual impairment. Kendriya Vidyalaya, Donimalai, Karnataka, had 23 students with visual impairment, Karimpuzha Higher Secondary School in Kerala had 16 while St. John's Higher Secondary School had 14 students.

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