Authors: Nipun Malhotra & Rohit Kumar
Date: 1st Feb, 2024
Budgets in India have often been criticised for completely ignoring the rights of Persons with Disabilities. The country often seesaws between budgets that are considered “populist” where the disabled are ignored as they aren’t considered a big enough vote bank, or those that are considered “growth oriented”, ignoring the disabled because they are not looked at as an engine of growth.
This was a major reason why we were elated at the Finance Minister’s focus on inclusive growth as a theme for this budget. Within the first five minutes, under the section Garib Kalyan, Desh ka Kalyan she went on to say, “The schemes for empowerment of Divyangs and Transgender persons reflect firm resolve of our Government to leave no one behind”. Our hopes had been raised.
In the speech that lasted slightly under an hour, disability would not be mentioned again. The devil as they say, is in the details. The allocations for the Department of PwDs has remained largely the same for several years now. This year again, the government has budgeted a mere 1,225 crore for a department that is supposed to cater to accessibility and other needs of Persons with Disabilities. This is just 0.02% of the total budget outlay for a population estimated to be 16% of the total as per the World Health Organisation. In past years, the actual spend by the department has been even lower. For example, in 2022-23 (two years ago) only around 990 crore of the allocated budget of 1,212 crore was spent.
The “Scheme for implementation of Persons with Disability Act” has actually reduced its budget from 150 crore to 135 crore, perhaps because the revised estimate for last year (2023-24) was a mere 67 crore. This is extremely unfortunate considering the struggles faced in the implementation of the RPwD Act. When the Act came into force in 2017, government departments were given five years to make themselves accessible. Unfortunately, in the last year alone we have seen incidents like the one where wheelchair model Virali Modi was forced to be carried up a floor of steps to complete her wedding registration. The fact is, Virali was vocal and based in the buzzing metropolis of Mumbai. It’s unlikely that such an incident would even be reported if it were to happen in the local office of a much smaller city.
Accessibility is both a stock and a flow problem. Many government departments and buildings hide behind the excuse of ‘lack of budgets’ to not make themselves accessible. The Scheme for implementation of Persons with Disability Act needs to have a dedicated budget to ensure retrofitting of solutions for accessibility in old buildings and infrastructure.
It is also sad that this year again, there has been no allocation for the “Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India” (ALIMCO) through the budget. This is in contrast to 2019–20 when 60 crore was allocated; budgetary allocations have only been cut in subsequent years. ALIMCO is the government’s premier disability aid manufacturer. This decrease in support to ALIMCO becomes particularly disappointing because on the one hand, GST is being charged on disability aids manufactured by the private sector and on the other, investments are not being made for ALIMCO to expand at a fast enough rate to keep pace with requirements.
There is planned investment in ALIMCO of 80 crore, but this is coming from IEBR (Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources – which constitutes the resources raised by PSUs through profits, loans and equity). It is great that ALIMCO is raising these funds but a stimulus from the government would only have helped, considering India’s rapidly aging demography which needs these disability aids as well.
We realise this was only an interim budget. However, it is unfortunate how successive Finance Ministers across governments have failed in setting a vision for the disabled community. Health insurance for what is in any case a very vulnerable community is not easily accessible, and private companies are not incentivized to develop more products for PwDs, even though courts have repeatedly pushed them to. While benefits under Ayushman Bharat can be availed, the scheme is not extended by default to people holding disability certificates and UDID cards, despite repeated demands by the community to institute this change.
Finally, beyond the budget figures, what was missing in the speech today was a roadmap to promote entrepreneurs with disabilities, a vision for assistive technology, stimulus to provide accessible infrastructure and jobs for the disabled. But more importantly, it was a stark reminder that the promise of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” is predicated on collective action. We hope this serves as a reminder to India’s disabled community that we must mobilise, vocalise and channel our energies to ensure that our interests are taken into account when successive governments lay out the year’s accounts.
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Nipun Malhotra is the founder of Nipman Foundation. Rohit Kumar is the co-founder of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) and The Quantum Hub (TQH) – a multi sectoral public policy firm.