Budget ignored us: disabled rights groups

More than 25 leaders of different disabled rights groups from across the country will come together to protest against the union budget, which they say, ignored them. They plan to protest outside Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence next week.

Javed Abidi, director of National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), said that while the budget has something for all other sections of the society, there was nothing for the disabled.

"We had extremely high hopes from the budget but Pranab Mukherjee’s proposal to increase the deduction in respect of maintenance, including medical treatment of a dependent who is a person with severe disability to Rs.100,000 from the present limit of Rs.75,000 was disappointing. While we cannot deny that a hike of Rs.25,000 will help some person somewhere, the proposal is hardly indicative of development or inclusiveness," Abidi said.

Such a proposal was more like charity while what the disabled are demanding are their rights, Abidi said.

"There was a promise to develop a national centre for development of universal design and barrier-free built environment, a sign-language research and training centre, a national captioning centre, and a school up to Class 12 for the deaf in every state and a college in every zone. None of these were mentioned by the finance minister in his speech," Abidi said.

"Despite demands for loans on concessional terms to promote self-employment amongst disabled people, incentives for the private sector to employ people with disabilities and a social security scheme for persons with mental disabilities, no action has been taken on any of these," he added.

The group is, therefore, planning to stage a protest in the capital July 24 to seek remedial measures.

Last updated on Jul 14^th, 2009 at 20:12 pm IST--IANS