Bihar and Jharkhand are among eight states
that are holding up moves to update national legislation on rights of
people with disabilities, prompting an angry Union minister to slap them
with an April 12 deadline for sending feedback on the draft bill.
Minister for social justice and
empowerment Kumari Selja has, therefore, written to the Governor of
Jharkhand, Syed Ahmed — it is under President’s Rule and chief ministers
of seven states, Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh),
Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab), N. Kiran Kumar Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), J.
Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), Tarun Gogoi (Assam) and Manik Sarkar
(Tripura).
In her letter,
Selja has said that the lack of comments on the “important” bill, which
seeks to remove yawning gaps in the existing law, had delayed the
ministry’s intention of finalising it for the Union Cabinet’s approval.
The draft of the
new disability bill has been in the pipelines for the past two years.
Now, the minister has asked the states to get back to her by April 12,
failing which her ministry will assume that they had no comments or
recommendations to offer.
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| Kumari Selja |
Selja has
also said in her letter that a copy of the Rights of Persons With
Disability (RPwD) Bill had been sent by the secretary, department of
disability affairs in September 2012 and the matter had been
subsequently followed up with the states. But none of them sent their
comments.
“I shall be
grateful if you could instruct the concerned officials to send the
comments/suggestions, if any, on the draft RPwD bill by April 12, 2013,
to enable this ministry to further proceed in the matter in getting the
proposal finalised. If no comments are received by that date, we would
presume that your state government has no comments on the matter,” the
letter said.
Selja’s letter
also said that since states were primarily responsible for the welfare
of people with disabilities, it was imperative that they gave their
inputs on the matter.
The ministry had
appointed a committee to draft the new legislation to replace the
Persons with Disabilities (Equal Protection of Rights and Full
Participation) Act, 1995. The committee gave its final draft in June
2011.
The draft bill had
been posted on the ministry’s website for suggestions from civil
society as well as disability groups. Sources indicated that the
ministry was keen to table the bill during Monsoon session of Parliament
in July-August.
The bill, after it
was reshaped with inputs from states, would be put up for
inter-ministerial consultations and then presented before Cabinet.
Source : The Telegraph , 11th April 2013
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