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‘Government ignoring the disabled’

NEW DELHI: Javed Abidi, director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, charged on Saturday that nearly 5,000 websites of the Centre are inaccessible to persons with disabilities, especially those with visual impairment.

“At the E-Governance Conference in Goa on February 12 this year it was announced that all government websites would be made WCAG 2.0-compliant. While the Union Ministry of Information Technology got india.gov.in as well as bharat.gov.in made accessible, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment continues to drag its feet. It is ironic, for this is the nodal ministry for issues concerning the disabled.”

“Equally shocking,” he added, “is the fact that even the website of the Commission for Persons with Disabilities is not accessible. And they are supposedly the watchdogs for any Disability Act violations that may occur! Also, the website of the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped is not accessible to visually impaired people.”

Citing these as proof of the ignorance, insensitivity and apathy of those very people in whose hand lies the fate of the country’s 70 million differently-abled, he said: “Over three months have gone by but no action has been taken. Therefore, we have decided to confront them.”

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