Team Herald
CANACONA: There are over 100 people with different types of disabilities in Canacona, including those with vision impairment, hearing problem, mental health conditions and physical disability, besides other type of disabilities.
However, due to the lack of implementation of the Central government guidelines and circulars, the disabled persons and their families feel neglected by both the government and the society at large.
Jobo D’Costa, a physically challenged person from Canacona, says there is a provision in the Indian constitution for 4 per cent reservation in jobs in government establishments, which has remained on paper without implementation. Besides, the areas earmarked for parking of vehicles of handicapped persons are always found parked and occupied by vehicles of normal persons, he added.
What’s more, even seats reserved for handicapped persons are occupied by abled-bodied persons, who refuse to vacate when requested, D’Costa points out.
Carlos Miranda, also from Canacona with physical disability, who is self-employed, says if they approach financial institutions for loans and advances to further their business, bank managers look at us with doubt over our abilities to run the business successfully.
“Also, due to my physical disability and short stature, I face difficulty in getting a licence. I may be short, but can drive a car as good as a normal person; but when I approached the RTO for licence they refused my application on the basis of my disability and only after persistent follow-up relented to issue me a driving licence,” he said.
As per persons with disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation), Act 1995, has conferred various powers to the persons with disabilities. However, the experience of many persons with disabilities in the State these powers and benefits are only on paper and most of the persons with disabilities have to fight with the authorities even to avail the simplest right, such as priority in queue or any kind of service or assistance.
Consequently, persons with disabilities have to face hardships, inconvenience and many a time such issues leads to argument and have to suffer for not getting the work done in many government offices. Sometimes unsympathetic staff and public also retort to offensive language, many people with disabilities reveal.
It is observed that most buildings housing government offices do not have proper staircase for handicaps to facilitate easy access. Suresh Faldesai who has a 25-year-old son with over 75 per cent disability opined that things only remain on paper and ground realities are very different.
“Having a handicapped person in the house is like carrying a cross every day, our Prime Minister has recently launched the accessible India campaign with a mission to make all the existing building disabled- friendly, however, forget about the old buildings, even the new buildings are not accessible to persons with disabilities,” he laments.
The reserved parking for persons with disabilities has been made mandatory for all government buildings, however only few offices have reserved parking and those offices which have reserved parking are practically unusable and are at most inconvenient location for the use by persons with disabilities. At some places these reserved parking is far from the entrance.
Besides, public services like buses, railways, theaters, cinema halls, hospitals, halls, public gardens, beaches, religious places, educational institutions, financial institutions, sports clubs and stadiums, public functions and events have no or negligible accessibility to the persons with disabilities, which in a way leads to discriminating against people of this segment of the society and violating the fundamental rights of differently-abled citizens.
A family member of Jeweler Fernandes from Agonda who is profoundly deaf told this correspondent that there is a huge backlog of vacancies reserved for persons with disabilities, however, no effort have been made to fill such vacancies.
The Block Development Office at Canacona when contacted said that they conduct regular camps for disabled persons and said that they are planning to conduct a medical camp of the disabled persons in Canacona to identify and help them overcome some of their disabilities.
