Research paper
Trends, prospects and deprivation index of disability in India: Evidences from census 2001 and 2011

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Abstract

Background

Since the dawn of civilization, disabilities have existed in various dimensions of human life. World Health Organization (WHO) defines disability as an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Globally, approximately 1 billion people have some form of disability, and approximately 20% have significant functioning impairments.

Objective

This study aims to estimate the level, trends and prospects of disability in 640 districts of India. Data for the present study has been taken from Census of India, 2001 and 2011.

Methods

A Disability Index was calculated at the district level, and state level indexing was done using the Disability Deprivation Index. The population for the year 2021 was projected using the exponential growth rate method. The Disability Deprivation Index was calculated using child labor, adult unemployment, illiteracy, and the ratio of beggars in the disabled population.

Results

The study reveals that the proportion of the disabled population in India was 2.10% in 2001, which increased to 2.21% in 2011. According to the Disability Deprivation Index, Maharashtra was the best-performing state in 2011. There were 4.90 million new cases of disability in India during 2001–11, out of which 1.52 million cases belonged to non-congenital disability.

Conclusions

There is a rise in the disabled population in India, which needs special attention. The working status of the disabled is gloomy. The majority of the disabled people are non-working and need adequate rehabilitation measures that would facilitate employment.

Section snippets

Data sources

Data for the present study has been taken from the Census of India 2001 and 2011.9, 10 The Indian Census has been the most credible source of information on demographics (population characteristics), economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanization, fertility and mortality, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, languages, religions, migration, disability, and many other socio-cultural and demographic data since 1872.

India follows a decennial census

Results

A total of 2,68,10,557 (2.21%) persons reported disability in Census 2011 in place of 2,19,06,769 (2.10%) in Census 2001. In the 2001 Census, 57.5% disabled people were male and 42.5% were female, which was almost similar in Census 2011 with 55.9% being male and 44.1% being female.

The result of the study has been organized into four parts:

Discussion

Ethically there should be no difference on the basis of physical/mental ability of the individual. However, in real scenario this may not be true for disabled people while they are experiencing inadequate, unethical treatment and rejection of fundamental rights by the society.18, 19 The unrepresented disabled people are an integral part of the growing population of marginal, weaker and vulnerable sections of the Indian society. The law of the land provides sufficient opportunities for the

Conclusions

People with disability are often discriminated specially in developing countries. Status of the people with disabilities have so far received inadequate consideration in development research given the lack of quality data on disability. They have also habitually been assumed to be an undersized group, reserved for the expert attention of health or rehabilitation professionals and outside the scope of development studies.19 The above analysis shows the severe condition of the disabled in India.

Funding

Ashish Awasthi received financial assistance for his doctoral research from Indian Council of Medical Research, Government of India, New Delhi, India. Manisha Dubey received financial assistance for her doctoral research from University Grants Commission, Government of India, New Delhi, India.

Ethics approval

This study is based on secondary data, which is available in the public domain. Therefore, there was no need to obtain ethical clearance for this study.

Data sharing statement

All the data is available in the public domain through the Office of the Registrar General of India.

Conflict of interest

The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.

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