Kannada version of draft disability law soon
Following the Centre’s decision to extend the deadline to hold state-level consultation on the draft disability law, efforts are on in full swing in the State to get the draft translated to Kannada and make it available to persons with disability and organisations representing them.
A group of NGOs and DPOs (Disabled People’s Organisations) have come together to form a state-level coordination committee - with the assistance of the State Commissioner for Disability, the Directorate of Disability Welfare and the National Trust-appointed state nodal agency (SNAC) - are working against the clock to get input from all stakeholders across the State.
“This is a very important phase of our activity,” said Ruma Banerjee, Managing Trustee of Seva In Action, the SNAC in Karnataka.
Earlier this month, Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment extended the deadline for consultation from February 10 to March 10, giving organisations adequate time to get the consultation done at the grassroot level in each State.
According to some observers, the process adopted by Karnataka has been comprehensive.
“Representatives from all categories of disability have come together and there’s certainly momentum. We will complete the translation by February 21, take it to the district level and then in early March, hold a consultative meeting in Bangalore to finalise the recommendation of the State,” said C Mahesh, Advocacy Co-ordinator, CBR Forum.
Training
The committee will identify persons to facilitate district-level consultations. Before the end of the month, they would train the district-level facilitators, dispatch the Kannada translation of the working draft, and collate the inputs from all districts before the first week of March.
“The focus has moved away from the process of drafting to the content of the law, which needs a lot more to become a potent legal basis to ensure disability rights. Otherwise, this would go the same way as the 1995 (Persons With Disability) Act,” Mahesh said.
Jayashree Ramesh, one of the members of the team that has undertaken the translation work, said the draft will be ready in time for the committee to dispatch and start meetings at the district level.
“We need to first create awareness about the draft and its content before collecting people’s input,” she said, adding that the intellectually challenged community (mainly parents and caregivers) do not expect much from the process and so are less enthusiastic.
