Workshop on simplification of forms while availing excise rebate

After a lengthy advocacy with Dept of Heavy Industries (DHI), Centre quashed manufacturer's certificate required to avail excise duty concession on the purchase of a new car by a person with disability. This was largely because of my face off with high-headed and insensitive Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL). Still, few problems remained in the medical certificate.

National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), an autonomous institute under DoPT, along with DHI organised a technical workshop on 'Citizen Centric Governance: Simplification of Forms' today at India International Centre where I was invited too along with stakeholders from auto industries and people who 'faced the music' while availing such concession. Hats off to DHI for revising the 16-question proforma to a single page. Feedback was sough on this revised format.

I suggested removal of medical examination certificate in entirety and replace it with either Disability Certificate OR MSJE's Unique Disability ID (UDID). Director General of NCGG Dr Gyanendra Badgaiyan was very receptive. Few participant raised the issue of multiple format by hospitals to which I highlighted 'Persons with Disabilities Amendment Rules 2009’. Based on stakeholder response from disability sector, RTO certificate was preferred over manufacturer. The affidavit wont be needed as the same info can be used in the online form just above signature. UDID will also make copy of Aadhar card irrelevant.

DG NCGG was especially irked by 'invalid carriage' and I proposed to use the term 'Adapted/Altered Vehicle driven by a person with disability'. He said he will personally take up the issues with Secretaries. Knowing his past contribution in bureaucracy, I am hopeful. Revision of forms will help those PwD also who can use manual transmission. Unlike the PMR deptt of Safdarjug Hospital, now PwDs wont be asked to get mental certificate on 'state of mental health' (Yes, they have actually mentioned this in writing)

Hats off to DHI and Director Praveen Aggarwal and Under Secy Ajai Gaur for hearing me patiently and putting things into action over the past one year. This is not their job still they are doing it. Sadly, I dont have such nice words for nodal Ministry (MSJE or Deptt of Empowerment of PwD)

Disability activists appeal to Modi, object to term 'divyang'

Shradha Chettri, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, Jan. 23 -- Organisations working for the welfare of the people with disabilities have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the use of the word 'Divyang' because they find it insulting.

On December 3, at the launch of Accessible India - an effort to make public places accessible to all, the Prime Minister had suggested that 'divyang' should be used instead of 'viklang' to describe people with special abilities.

He made the same suggestion during his Mann Ki Baat radio address on December 27.

According to the groups for the disabled, Divyang means a person with supernatural powers in his body.

The letter to the PM was written by Abha Khetarpal, who was recently selected as one among 100 women achievers by Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Source: Hindustan Times, 23 Jan 2016

#SayNoToDivyang

Mr Prime Minister, Dont insult us, consult us!

Rema Nagarajan | TNN | Jan 23, 2016, 07.15 PM IST

 Several organisations working for disability rights and people with disabilities themselves have categorically rejected the use of the word divyang coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to describe them, but he pressed on with using divyang at a function in Varanasi where he distributed aid equipment to several thousand disabled persons.

Disabled rights activists had written to the PM on January 17 appealing to him not to propagate "the insulting discriminatory , euphemistic and condescending word further", but judging by his repeated use of the term on Friday it has had little effect.


The PM justified using divyang saying: "What I want to do is change the mindset about differently-abled people. When I say let's use the word `divyang', it is about that change."

Several in the disability sector expressed shock and dismay that the PM insisted on using the word. "If the PM is commit ted to our welfare, as he said to day, why is he not taking our feedback on using divyang?

Why impose this word on us? It is not for other people to decide what to call us. It is to be done in consultation with us in keeping with the slogan `nothing about us without us'. We like the words disability and viklang and we do not think they are insulting," said Dr Satendra Singh, one of the signatories of the January 17 letter.


The repeated use of the word has also prodded the Na tional Platform for the Rights of the Disabled to issue an open letter to the PM saying that while they did not question the motive behind coining of the expression, mere change of terminology could not change the way the disabled were treated. "We presumed it to be a oneoff remark, emerging from some stray thoughts. But in the subsequent days we were bombarded with the use of the term `divyaang', not by you alone but various others in the government, who have taken the cue," the latest letter said.

"Exclusion and marginalisation can't be addressed by using patronising terms like `divyang'. On the contrary , they will only invoke sympathy and underline that charity is what counts," stated the letter ending with a request to the PM "to refrain from using the term and also shelve any plan that the government may be making to officially use this term".

Source: Times of India 23 Jan 2016

#TakebackDivyang #SayNoToDivyang