Disabled census -- Panel rephrases questions to make it easy for relatives
SREELATHA MENON

NEW DELHI, OCT 2: The decision to include the disabled in Census 2001, which has come after a long period of dilly-dallying by the Government, is posing another challenge -- how to make families come up with details about disabled relatives without feeling offended or hurt.

The Census Commission has tried to make the task easy by phrasing the question on disability in a very sensitive language. The single question on disability is: `If the person is physically, mentally disabled, give appropriate code number from the list below'. The list includes five types of disabilities -- in seeing, hearing, speech, movement and mental disability.

In the earlier census drive, the categories were -- `totally blind', `totally deaf' and `totally dumb' -- which obviously hurt the disabled and their families. One of the main objections to including the disabled in the census has been the refusal of their families to answer such blunt questions in the past.

The new expressions, selected after discussions with representatives of disability groups like Spastics Society of Northern India and Disability Rights Group, have found terms that are not insensitive to anyone's feelings.

The Census Department has decoded these five categories of disability in its training sheets for enumerators. Disability in seeing would mean no vision or difficulty in seeing even with spectacles, the enumerators have been told. Disability in speech would mean speech which is incomprehensible; it is not applicable to children less than three years of age.

The third category -- disability in hearing -- means ``no hearing or hearing only for very loud sounds''. Disability in movement means loss or absence of limbs, difficulty in moving limbs, and mental disability means comprehension not appropriate for age, dependence on others for daily activities, including mental illnesses.

The Census Commission has advised enumerators to handle the question on disability with sensitivity ``so that the family members do not feel hurt''. The head of the family should be told of the motive behind the inquiry -- that the Government wants to know the exact numbers of the disabled so that it could prepare schemes for the disabled. The enumerator should put the disability mentioned under the relevant category.

Attempts to inform the public about the drive are to begin next week with a meeting of activists of the northern zone, parents and NGOs in New Delhi.

There will be similar zonal awareness meetings in Chennai, Mumbai and Calcutta till November to be followed by meetings in various other cities and villages.

NGOs like the Spastics Society of Northern India in Delhi, National Association of the Blind in Mumbai, Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy in Calcutta and Vidya Sagar in Chennai will be behind the zonal meetings which will be supported by recipients of Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship.

Two films prepared by the Disability Rights Group would be aired on television till February 2001, when the census is held.

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.