After junking data of PwDs, govt. says no current data to determine need for special educators

Statement by Union govt. in Lok Sabha comes weeks after The Hindu had reported that the Social Justice Ministry had junked all socio-economic data it had collected for 90 lakh PwDs registered under Unique Disability ID system

The Union government on Tuesday told the Lok Sabha that it has no current data to determine the need for special educators for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) and frame a policy for it accordingly, adding that the data used by the department concerned is from the 2011 Census.

This comes weeks after The Hindu had reported that the Social Justice Ministry had junked all socio-economic data it had collected for 90 lakh PwDs it registered under the Unique Disability ID system. The data that was left out of the database included fields like personal and family income, employment status, education, caste, etc.

Replying to a question in Lok Sabha from MPs Y.S. Avinash Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, and Manne Srinivas Reddy, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Pratima Bhoumik informed Parliament that the data being used for determining the need for special educators for PwDs is with the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education.

Even as per this data, which the government said is based on Census 2011, Ms. Bhoumik noted that there were 22.66 lakh children (from pre-primary to higher secondary) with special needs in India and corresponding to that there were 1.33 lakh special educators who are professionally trained for the job.

However, in the same reply, the Social Justice Ministry said that data available with the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) showed that 1.66 lakh special educators had been registered on the Central Rehabilitation Register (CRR).

In addition, the government said that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016 already provides strict mandates for educational institutes and schools to give the required support for children with special needs.

When the government had presented its plans for compiling the Unique Disability ID database to a House panel, it had reprimanded the Department for not having any current data on the population of PwDs across the country. It had also noted that the UDI system had only managed to capture less than half of the population of PwDs as of 2011, expressing doubts about whether this was the perfect way to gather data for policy-framing.