Date:14/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/08/14/stories/2004081415390500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

2.2 crore disabled in country

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, AUG. 13. Disabled persons constitute 2.13 per cent of India's population. In absolute numbers this adds up to just below 2.2 crore people, according to data released by the Directorate of Census Operations.

Of this figure, almost half, or 10.6 million have a disability in sight while more than a quarter (6.1 million) have disability in movement. One in 10 among the disabled, or 2.3 million have mental disability, 1.6 million have speech disability and 1.3 million have hearing disability.

The State with the highest proportion of disabled population is Sikkim with 3.77 per cent of its population under this category while the lowest proportion of disabled population is Goa with 1.17 per cent disabled.

J&K tops the list

States which have a disabled population higher than the national average are Jammu and Kashmir (2.98), Himachal Pradesh (2.57), Uttaranchal (2.29), Rajasthan (2.50), Bihar (2.27), Arunachal Pradesh (3.03), West Bengal (2.30), Orissa (2.78), Madhya Pradesh (2.33), Kerala (2.70) and Tamil Nadu (2.63).

Data collection on disabilities began with the first country-wide Census in 1871-72 and continued without break till 1931. Data on disability was not collected in the 1941 Census enumeration due to World War II. Data collection experience till then had also indicated that the enumerators were not equipped to collect correct information regarding the number of disabled persons and therefore the practice was discontinued. Disability data was again collected in 1981 Census, but it was again discontinued in the last Census of 1991.

Data available on CDs

It was only as a result of sustained lobbying by NGOs and disabled persons' organisations that the Government decided to include the enumeration of disabled people in the 2001 Census. Five types of disability (in seeing, speech, hearing, movement and mental) were listed out for the enumerators with further instructions to record only one disability per person even if he or she suffered from multiple disabilities. In such cases of multiple disability it was left to the respondents to decide which category they should be listed in. This data is available from the Census Directorate in a CD-Rom.

13.65 lakh in State

Disabled persons constitute 1.79 per cent of the State's population or a total of 13.65 lakh people. This is considerably lower than the national average of 2.13 per cent.

While 5.82 lakhs, or 42.6 per cent, are disabled in sight, which again is much lower than the national average of 48.6 per cent visually disabled, Andhra Pradesh has a greater proportion of its population `disabled in movement' at 30.5 per cent, or 4.16 lakhs, of the total disabled.

Further, there are 1.55 lakh mentally challenged and 1.39 lakh disabled in speech. There are 0.7 lakh hearing disabled.

Fact file

Even though Khammam district has the highest proportion of disabled with 2.47 per cent of its population recording some disability, East Godavari has the highest number of disabled at 92,680. Other districts with high numbers of disabled are Nalgonda (73,616), Krishna (71,156) and Guntur (76,735). Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts together have 1.12 lakh disabled.

The lowest enumeration of disabled has been in Adilabad district with only 33,722 recorded at 1.36 per cent of the total population. Nizamabad too has a low disabled figure at 39,939 or 1.7 per cent of its total population.