Development Program Proposal: Aged and Person with Disability in India- Report Writing Assignment

Internal Code: 2IDD

Report Writing Assignment:

Task: Aged and person with disability in India India is going through a demographic revolution that results in a rise in the ratio of aged people in its population. The life expectancy of the mentally and the physically affected population has displayed significant improvements. Almost 5% of the older people have been identified to have issues with physical motilities. Aging in India has become a gender issue because of the fact that most of the women in the region are living into the old age and they are risky and face many disadvantages in the society. Many instances have shown the women to be caregivers to the old and disabled and the old people in the country are the people in the category of the high-risk groups for the many morbidities. It is predicted that almost 4 million people in India have suffered from mental issues and almost 12 million people have been identified as handicapped. However, there is not much available information regarding the disabled people who live to old age. The state policy on older people has recently been commissioned to provide improved life quality for the many people in India although the concerns regarding the older disabled population and the disabled who grow old are attended separately in both policy and practice. In this discussion, the paper aims at discussing issues and aspects regarding the person with a disability in India. According to the census in India in 2011, almost 2.68 out of the 121 Cr population people were identified to be disabled. The number is equivalent to 2.21% of the total population. At a time when the inclusive development is stressed as the appropriate path towards sustainable development, the focused programs for the issues regarding the disabled people are important. The emphasis is regarding the need for strengthening the disability statistics in India (Aggarwal, 2008). There are many reasons behind developing sound national disability statistics in India. Information on the socio-demographic profile is quite important for the welfare of the disabled population. The information about the functional status of is important to be able to define the needs because two individuals with similar impairments usually face different challenges in various activities and they also appear to have different needs that need different interventions. The functional status data is important as it aids in determining the broader social needs o the disabled people including the provision of assistive technology that can be used in employment and educational sectors. The population disability data in India is held important as it significantly helps in monitoring the quality and results of the people with disabilities (Alur, 2007). The data particularly helps in defining the results that will increase the engagement of the people with disabilities in the community life. It is important to note that with the help of the complete and reliable statistics, the state agencies can access the tools to assess the cost-effectiveness of the policies for people with disabilities that will, in turn, provide evidence to influence the governments on the benefits of all citizens. The national policy for the people with disability acknowledges the fact that the disabled population is valuable human capital for India and that they aim at creating an environment where there are equal opportunities and protection of rights as well as full participation in the society (Govinda and Bandyopadhyay, 2008). Most of the international commitments were implemented to target the welfare of the people with disability.  India is known to be a signatory to the declaration of the participation and equality of the people with disability in Asia Pacific region. The country has also ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of the person. India is also known to be a signatory to the Biwako Millennium framework of 2002 that advocated for the actions towards an inclusive and a barrier-free, right-oriented society for the disabled people (Grills et al., 2017). The different combinations related to the structural factors have been found to intersect with a disability that has resulted in a variety of people’s experiences. However, the broad commodities shaping the lives of the disabled population in India transcended the divisions. The lives of the people have largely been marked with poverty and marginalization from the social processes. According to the records by the World Bank (2007), the disabled kids are five times most likely to be away from schools than the kids with scheduled castes and tribes. In cases where the disabled kids attend schools, they have been found to have rare progress beyond the primary levels that result in low employment opportunities and long-term poverty (Singal, Jeffery, Jain and Sood, 2008). According to the NSS data and the World Bank (2007) reports, it is identified that it’s easier than the educational achievements of the PWD and the current attendance of the CWD are poor and below the average of the country. The data has offered the suggestion that the people with disability have low educational attainment rates. It has also been identified that the illiteracy rates are usually high across the categories of the disabled people and in the cases of kids with visual and mental impairment. Equally, the share of the children with disabilities in India who are not in school in close to five and a half times the rate and almost four times high than the overall enrollments of a significant share of the out of school kids are disabled. The data has also issued evidence that it is rare to find the disabled population progress beyond the primary school levels (Jeffery and Singal, 2008). Employment has always been among the important aspects of the lives of people with disabilities. Education has been seen to issue fulfillment and an economic foundation of people as it is the key source of income for many people and a source of other important financial benefits. However, the employment rates of the people with disabilities in India is low and is believed to be caused by various factors that include limitations related to the disability-related as well as low levels of education and discrimination by employers in hiring and the challenge involved in sustaining employment after the onset of a disability (BORGELT, 2010). In India, there is a plethora initiative put in place to promote the employment of the disabled persons. However, the effects of these programs have been negligible and most of the initiatives have been confined in the urban areas. It is assumed that these are because of the weaknesses in design and implementation of these programs (Naraharisetti & Castro, 2016). India has limited chances for the people with disabilities to be employed in the private sectors. This is despite the fact that the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995 have statutes requiring the private sectors to give 5% of its employment opportunities to the people with disability. During the end of the 90s in India, the employment of the people with disability in most of the big private entities was 0.3% of the workforce in these entities. The situation was worse in the multinational entities in India as the disabled population in the workforce was 0.05%. The NGOs in India has become an important tool for training people with disability and direct employment generation although most of them do not have accreditation process. The major contributor to the low employment rates of the people with disabilities has been the low education levels they have as they are also looked down upon in most of the education sectors (Kumar, Premarajan, Kattimani & Kar, 2018). According to the World report, the people with disabilities in India have low access to healthcare services that result in unmet healthcare attention. One of the common reasons identified as one causing the low access to healthcare services for the people with disability is the costs of health care. The population has been identified to have high health expenditures, Out-of-pocket spending and more burdens than the people without disabilities. Among their main issues to low access to quality health care includes affordability and transportation services (Yong, Vukicevic, Koklanis & Boyle, 2014). After critical review, it is appropriate to conclude that aging in India has become a gender issue because of the fact that most of the women in the region are surviving into the old age and they are vulnerable and face many disadvantages in the society. The study has identified that there are many reasons behind developing sound national disability statistics in India. Information on the socio-demographic profile is quite important for the welfare of the disabled population. The employment rates of the people with disabilities in India is low and is believed to be caused by various factors that include limitations related to the disability-related as well as low levels of education and discrimination by employers in hiring and the challenge involved in sustaining employment after the onset of a disability. The world report identified that that the people with disability have low educational attainment rates. It has also been identified that the illiteracy rates are usually high across the categories of the disabled people and in the cases of kids with visual and mental impairment.