An opportunity to ensure that Government jobs are open to disabled persons
Disabled persons and their organizations have an opportunity to provide input to an Expert Committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for identifying those jobs in Government which are suitable for disabled persons. The mandate to do this comes from Section 33 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, according to which the Expert Committee is required every three years to review the Government jobs in the various departments and public sector enterprises and come out with a list of jobs it deems suitable for disabled persons. Persons with disabilities can apply for vacancies in these jobs and also avail the benefit of reservation in these jobs.
The modern view of disability increasingly holds that the vast majority of job functions can be performed adequately by physically disabled persons if they are provided with the right kinds of assistance, adjustment and necessary modifications to perform them adequately. The UN Convention, which India has ratified and is therefore obliged to implement, calls for the provision of “reasonable accommodation” not amounting to undue burden for the social and economic integration of disabled persons. Accordingly, a progressive approach would be to focus on the kinds of assistance and accommodations that can be provided to enable a person with disability to do a certain job, and accordingly include that job in the Expert Committee list. Another approach could be to deem any job that a particular person with disability is able, willing and qualified for, to be suitable for such a person with the appropriate aids, appliances and reasonable accommodations.
The Chairperson of the Expert Committee is the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. The Expert Committee also has the following persons as members, representing the disabled persons organizations: (1) Ms. Shivani Gupta (2) Mr. S.K. Rungta (3) Mr. Alok Kejriwal.