The High Court of Karnataka has ordered issue of notice to the Central government on a PIL petition questioning exclusion of disabilities as a variable in the ensuing National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice M.G.S. Kamal passed the order on the petition filed by Javed Abidi Foundation.
The petitioner has sought a direction to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to include the 21 disabilities mentioned in the schedule to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD), 2016 as a variable in the household questionnaire of the NFHS-6 while pointing out that disabilities was a variable in the NFHS-5
Reasons for exclusion
Quoting various media reports, it has been claimed in the petition that the disabilities were excluded from NFHS-6 on the advise of a Technical Advisory Committee citing two reasons - enumerators were not trained nor qualified to ask about and evaluate disability; and enumerating disability as a variable was a time-consuming and laborious process.
The reasons cited to exclude disabilities are unjustifiable in the light of Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which states that it the right of persons with disabilities to be part of any data collection exercise and all data about disability should be disaggregated so that persons with disabilities can get the maximum advantage of any schemes and other programmes meant for their welfare. The exclusion also violative of the provisions of the RPwD Act, the petition has complained.
Disputing claim
The petitioner has also disputed the claim of the Ministry that the disabilities has been already enumerated during the 76th round of the National Sample Survey of 2018 and there would be no change in those figures.
The Ministry’s response to petitioner stating that the NFHS-5 contained questions questionnaire on disabilities on the advise of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, and the primary focus of NFHS is maternal and child health and other questions with a very shorter version of the question will not be advisable.
