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)

Everything you want to know about rights of drivers with disability

Ability On Wheels... Enabling Drivability (First Edition, 2016) Paperback – 2016

"Ability on Wheels," penned by Harish Kumar, is an attempt to answer all the questions which come to the mind of any person with disability when he dreams of buying a vehicle & driving on his own. This book also provides insights on safe driving, which are applicable to all & hence even people without disabilities can read this book & learn a lot of things about driving which they may have been ignorant of.

Who is Harish Kumar? A Holder of two National Records in Limca Book of Records, Harish was born with an absence of right arm below the elbow. He did his schooling from a reputed school in Dehradun & went on to do his Masters in Science from IIT Roorkee & Masters in Technology from IIT Delhi. In 2012 he became the first physically challenged person in the country to successfully complete a Solo All India Driving Expedition thereby creating a new National Record in Limca Book of Records.
 

Harish Kumar, editor and Dr Satendra Singh

What is "Ability on Wheels"? ABILITY ON WHEELS is an effort to encourage the people with disabilities to take a big leap towards leading a normal life by providing mobility & accessibility services & solutions. As a first step towards this direction Ability on Wheels has launched a first of its kind in the country driving school exclusively for the differently abled using customized cars in Ahmedabad. This is the first book penned by Harish as an effort to spread awareness & provide useful information on disability & driving. 

"Enabling Driveability" is everything you always wanted to know about disability & driving. In line with 'nothing about us, without 'us', 6 individuals with disabilities have pen down their experiences to make it a complete encyclopedia on driving and disability in Indian context.

Harish Kumar begins with 'Can I drive?' where he writes about disability assessment with regards to driving. Kavita Modi writes about invalid carriage (IVC) in chapter 2 -'What can I drive?' Pallav Pathak mentions driving strategies in chapter 3 - 'How can I drive?' Jaspal Singh talks about driving license in chapter 4 - 'Let me drive'. Navin Gulia mentions about Governmental benefits in chapter 5 - 'My best drive'. Issues facing these benefits are covered in chapter 6 written by me 'A worthy drive'. Finally there is a chapter on the ideal scenario as 'Dream Drive'. The foreword has been written by Advocate Subhash Chandra Vashishth. I request people to forward this valuable info in the Ability on Wheels Book to all the needy. One can buy the book from here.

The above picture is that of my modified Baleno along with the 'Ability on Wheel' book as a constant companion. To buy this car, I had to fight a lengthy battle which is covered in Chapter six and its outcome was amendment of Central Guidelines for availing excise duty concession. The details are available here.

Centre amends excise duty concession for disabled

BREAKTHROUGH: It was not easy to fight single handedly for a cause which involved three different ministries. But if there is a will, there is a way. When TOI first broke the story, a section of so called armchair facebook activists complained that few people are getting excise duty concession. Few people! After a 5 month advocacy with Department of Heavy industries, here is the policy change. Customers with disabilities DO NOT need manufacturer certificate now. They are free from the harassment of Maruti Suzuki (who discriminates on right and leg left disabled despite losing a case in High Court of Rajasthan). One has to get only a RTO certificate NOW and the benefit extends to a disabled person driving an automatic transmission, retrofitted vehicle or one using assistive devices. Please spread the word and know your rights.

Full Times Of India report:

Manash Pratim Gohain| May 26, 2016, 01.03 AM IST

New Delhi: The Centre has amended the guidelines for excise duty concession to disabled people for buying vehicles . A notification in this regard was issued by the ministry of heavy industries on April 21 and May 2.

The new guidelines have also done away with the manufacturer's certificate necessary for availing the concession; a certificate by the district road transport officer would now suffice.

TOI had reported on April 4 how Maruti Suzuki India Ltd had denied the concession to Dr Satendra Singh, a teacher at University College of Medical Sciences, on the grounds that it's allowed only in the case of a left-leg disability. Singh was disabled in the right leg.

The Gazette of India notification stated, "...it has further been decided that the requirement of manufacturer certificate from OEMs in case of retrofitment of vehicles, after purchase, shall be dispensed with. Instead the certificate from district road transport officer, as per annexure, would be sufficient for applying to this department."

An addendum was issued on May 2 on the annexure of the 'certificate to be issued' that added "auto transmission or which has been retrofitted or his/her disability has been addressed by prosthetic means". This was done so that no disabled buyers are harassed.

Gazette notification: http://enablingunit.yolasite.com/excise.php

Also Read:

Only left is right: Why disabled drivers miss discount trip. 4 April 2016.Times of India.

Maruti is certainly not for car aspirants with disability

Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has come up with a unique way to discriminate drivers with disability. The Government of India gives the people with disabilities there legitimate right to avail excise duty concession on the purchase of a new car but MSIL has a problem with that. They want excuses to deny this and they have come up with a unique way of discrimination. They will not grant this concession to customers with right leg disability.

Discriminatory Guidelines by Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL)

The Guidelines by MSIL for booking and purchasing a new car is given at this link. The salient points are summarised below

Despite the clear cut guidelines by the Central Government, often the customers with disabilities are harassed. This is in part due to lack of awareness, confusion of excise duty waiver with road tax exemption and discrimination by manufacturers. Take for example the case of biggest manufacturer in India -MSIL. They provide the excise duty concession only to customers with left leg disability which is discriminatory.The Government guidelines no where mentions between right and leg disability. This is the creation of MSIL only and they were slammed by High Court of Rajasthan on the same issue in the Vijay Raj Khariwal vs Union of India & Ors. CW Case No. 2697 of 2005. The readers can read the judgement and decide on there own. Same thing happened with Dr Satendra Singh from Delhi which was prominently highlighted by the Times of India.

For availing manufacturer certificate, MSIL insists on submitting photograph 'showing' the disability. Why? Why do they want to see the photo of an amputee female above thigh when she has a medical certificate already. This is also infringement of right to privacy as well as violation of Disability Amendment Rules 2009. Dr Satendra Singh has already written to both Deputy GM, CRM, MSIL as well as Secretary, Department of Heavy Industries on this. One can read the letters here. Incidentally, it was Dr Singh only who challenged similar discriminatory proforma asking for photo 'showing' disability from UPSC and IIT JEE aspirants. Both had to withdraw these after his petition with Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities.

So MSIL is a detective agency. They do not believe the medical certificate issued by a doctor from a Govt hospital. They also do not believe in the disability certificate issued to the person by a medical board constituted in Govt hospital. They want to see the 'photo showing disability' and recheck by there doctor. Is the minimal excise duty concession being given from there pocket? Who gave them this ridiculous authority?

This further proves, why MSIL is hell bent on harassing disabled persons. Look at the extra document they need which are nowhere mentioned in the Govt circulars. This is the response of the top manufacturer in India. After publication of the story in TOI, Dr Singh got a call from a reader Dr Girish Gupta that same thing happened with him for one month when he wanted to get the exemption on Ciaz. After getting frustrated he switched to Hyundai's Creta and got all these excise duty concession in just a day. So this is deliberate attempt on part of MSIL to harass people with disabilities. Shame on them!

#MarutiNOTforDisabled

Maruti Suzuki's discrimination against customers with disabilities

Only left is right: Why disabled drivers miss discount trip
Manash Pratim Gohain | TIMES OF INDIA |Apr 4, 2016

New Delhi: It is clearly about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, only it involves the two legs rather than the hands in the case of Dr Satendra Singh. For a month now, the teacher at the University College of Medical Sciences in the capital has been struggling with a peculiar problem, the resolution of which could help many others like him beat red tape. Singh is in the market for a car, but having a right leg that is polio-affected is not helping him much despite the central government actually offering excise duty concessions to buyers with special needs such as him. The confounding thing in his case is his right limb—the car company he has approached insists that the tax leniency is allowed only in the case of a disabled left leg.

In January, having set his eyes on the hatchback Baleno, Singh approached Maruti Suzuki's Nexa showroom, first in Noida, then at Akshardham, where he was told that the excise duty concession was not applicable to him because it was meant only for drivers with a left-leg disability. He argued that the central government guidelines on the matter did not differentiate between right and left leg disabilities. He also pointed out that he held a driving licence for the "invalid carriage" category of vehicles, which enabled him to drive his current car, a Maruti Alto.

However, a customer relationship manager of Maruti informed Singh that the company's automatic transmission vehicles "can be used by the physically disabled customers with left leg disability only". A Maruti spokesperson also said that the burden of verification and certifying the details of buyers with disabilities lay with the car manufacturer. In his case, Maruti informed Singh that it could not discount the price payable under the disability provisions.

"If you are left leg-disabled person, then for the purpose of buying an automatic transmission vehicle, you are as good as non-disabled," remonstrated Singh. Irked by a month of trying to convince the unmoved car company, Singh has now directly approached the government.

Seeking a quick resolution to his problem, Singh's letter to the secretary of the ministry of heavy industries, said that "the decision by Maruti Suzuki India Limited to exclude customers with right leg disability is discriminatory to say the least". He, therefore, requested the ministry to instruct car makers to allow people with lower limb disabilities to avail the benefits provided under the law "without any riders".

Singh pointed out that car companies, including Maruti, earlier sold cars that had been modified for use by people with orthopaedic difficulties. Such cars were termed "invalid carriages". In 2008, in the C. Paulraj vs The Secretary, Ministry of Transport and others case in Madras High Court, Justice D Hariparanthaman had noted, "If the mobility of physically challenged persons is curtailed, it would result in perpetuating inequality and the object of the Persons With Disabilities Act 1995 would be defeated." The judge, therefore, ruled that the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 did not prohibit any person, including physically challenged persons, from converting motor vehicles into "invalid carriages".

The same year, Justice P K Misra of the same court, hearing R Ramaswamy's petition against the Secretary, Ministry of Transport and others, expanded the meaning of "invalid carriage" to mean not only factory modified cars, but also those adapted for use by disabled drives at private workshops.

"No major car maker now manufactures invalid carriages in India, so people with disabilities have to get the fabrication done through local mechanics and fabricators," said Singh.

If the ministry responds favourably to Singh's petition, then it will certainly bring at least this version of a right versus left face-off to a satisfactory conclusion.

Reference: TIMES OF INDIA 4th April 2016

#MarutiNOTforDisabled