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For the cause of disabled

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI APRIL 29. Protesting against the "government's apathy'', the Disabled Rights Group convenor, Javed Abidi, has decided to sit on an indefinite hunger strike here from May 7.

The DRG is protesting against the ''inaction'' on the part of the Government on the 13 demands its members had placed before the Government on February 7 with a request to act on them within three months.

``With the three months coming to an end, the Government has remained non-responsive to our demands,'' charged Mr. Abidi. "We had requested the Government to take steps to standardise the sign language, revise immediately the so-called `Revised Job List' which is full of defects, reserve the office of the Chief Commissioner for persons with disability and appoint a full-fledge disability Commission with 5 to 7 members. We also wanted to pass the amendments to the Disability Act 1995 (pending for almost two years or more), shift special education from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and pass an Ordinance to ensure barrier-free design and access features for disabled people in all future construction.''

Mr. Abidi said that their demands had obviously fallen on deaf ears, leaving them with no other means but to sit on a hunger strike.

In a statement, the DRG pointed out that while the Disability Act was passed by Parliament in December 1995 and notified on February 7, 1996, not even 10 per cent of what it contains has been implemented faithfully.

``The law guarantees 3 per cent reservation in all educational institutions, but even 6 years after the framing of the law, there is not one university that can claim to be barrier-free, same goes for government jobs and the general attitude of how the government looks at its disabled population,'' asserted Mr. Abidi.

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