According to the rights group, the exercise will produce inaccurate data and render entire groups of persons with disabilities ‘invisible’ in official statistics. This, they say, will impact policy-making, programme design, budgetary allocations and accountability.DISABILITY RIGHTS groups on Wednesday raised concerns that only nine categories have been proposed to enumerate persons with disabilities in Census 2027.Their concern is based on forms provided under the self-enumeration process which recently went live under Census 2027 for snowbound areas in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The second phase of population enumeration for snowbound areas will be undertaken from September 1 to 30, followed by a revisional round between October 1 and 5. However, the option for self-enumeration under this exercise began Monday, August 17, and will be available till August 31.The groups are demanding that the disability questionnaire in Census 2027 should individually capture all 21 disabilities as is officially recognised under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD), 2016, according to a press statement by the National Platform for the Rights of Disabled (NPRD) and endorsed by more than 400 signatories, including activists, organisations and concerned citizens.The statement pointed out that Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale had said in March this year that Census 2027 will capture data of 21 disabilities. Athawale had said the exercise was a historic opportunity to enable targeted policymaking for persons with disabilities.The statement, citing information shared by the Politics and Disability Forum, said that the enumeration proposes to record only nine disability categories: seeing, hearing, speech, mobility, intellectual disabilities, mental illness, disability due to acid attack, due to chronic neurological disease and due to blood disorder. The 2011 Census had included six of these categories and that counted 2.68 crore persons with disabilities, which was 2.21% of the country’s population.Responding to queries sent by The Indian Express regarding inclusion of only nine categories, a senior official from the Office of the Registrar General of India said, “The nine categories mentioned in population enumeration questionnaire are broader categories which include other detailed specific disabilities. Additionally, the option to record multiple disabilities (up to three), in the order of severity, is available in the questionnaire. Consultations have been held with Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment as well as other stakeholders before finalising the categories to be provided for enumeration.”The official said a three-day training is held for enumerators and supervisors to cover all aspects of the questionnaire and that field functionaries are also not technically qualified to assess or confirm different disabilities. Further, 2027 Census is enumerating more number of disabilities than 2011 Census, the official said.As per the 2011 Census data, three types of disabilities — movement/locomotor, hearing and vision-related — accounted for over half of the country’s PwD population.Story continues below this ad“It is deplorable that conditions like autism spectrum disorder, specific learning disabilities, dwarfism, leprosy-cured persons and multiple disabilities, including deafblindness, have not been distinctly placed (under disability category),” the press statement said.The statement also makes a case for how under the current format, distinct disabilities like thalassemia, haemophilia and sickle-cell disease get reduced to a single category of “blood disorder”.Shashank Pandey, the founder of research think-tank Politics and Disability Forum and a lawyer, told The Indian Express, “The prescription of broad categories without notification of a training module for enumerators to understand specific disabilities under each broad category will be double jeopardy for PwDs who neither communicate nor understand their correct disability. The lack of disaggregated data for specific disabilities like sickle cell anaemia, thalassemia, is ironic since the government is running national programmes on certain conditions and still not collecting data.”Three new categories introduced this time are acid attack, chronic neurological disease and blood disorder. The RPwD Act, 2016, replaced the PwD Act, 1995. It acknowledged the dynamic and evolving concept of disability and expanded their types from seven to 21. Speech and language disability and specific learning disability were some of the categories added for the first time.Story continues below this adAccording to the rights group, the exercise will produce inaccurate data and render entire groups of persons with disabilities ‘invisible’ in official statistics. This, they say, will impact policy-making, programme design, budgetary allocations and accountability.“Census must reflect the progress made in disability rights law, not perpetuate outdated and inadequate classifications,” it said. An award-winning journalist with 14 years of experience, Nikhil Ghanekar is an Assistant Editor with the National Bureau [Government] of The Indian Express in New Delhi. He primarily covers environmental policy matters which involve tracking key decisions and inner workings of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. He also covers the functioning of the National Green Tribunal and writes on the impact of environmental policies on wildlife conservation, forestry issues and climate change. Nikhil joined The Indian Express in 2024. Originally from Mumbai, he has worked in publications such as Tehelka, Hindustan Times, DNA Newspaper, News18 and Indiaspend. In the past 14 years, he has written on a range of subjects such as sports, current affairs, civic issues, city centric environment news, central government policies and politics. ... Read More Tags:census