A group of persons with disability staged a demonstration here on Wednesday demanding a comprehensive law which recognises all rights of persons with disabilities.
They also boycotted the State-level consultation on the working draft for new legislation for Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2011, organised by the National Institute of Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities and the Spastic Society of Tamil Nadu, at the Central Leather Research Institute.
“The comprehensive Act should address all our special needs,” said T.M.N. Deepak, a person with disability. The consultation meeting was disrupted and the people who participated in the meeting were shifted from the CLRI premises to another location later in the day. The consultation on the working draft should encompass the concerns of all sections of persons with disability, said D. Gnanabharathi, a person with paraplegia. “More persons with disability, from the rural areas, should participate in the consultation,” he said.
“Most of the 240 persons who registered their names for the consultation were people without any disability. More persons with disability should have been participating in the consultation,” said P.Simmachandran, State secretary, Federation of Tamil Nadu Physically Handicapped Associations.
“The concerns of the persons with disability will be reported to the authorities,” said Neeradha Chandramohan, Director of National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities. “It may not be easy to address the different kinds of disability in a comprehensive legislation,” said I.Arivanandham, Regional Director of the National Institute of the Visually Handicapped.
According to the organisations who organised the consultation, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act would guarantee equality and non-discrimination to all persons with disabilities and recognise legal capacity of all persons with disabilities.
