People with Disabilities in India: From Commitment to Outcomes

disability SHGs, which has been shown in states like AP (and in mainstream targeted credit
programs) to be more effective than individual lending in expanding credit coverage.
63. Increasing outreach to marginalized groups and regions. Both public and NGO
training for disabled people needs to make greater efforts to include women with disabilities and
a broader range of disabilities. They also need to develop simple processes for regular
assessment of labor market demand. Pilot interventions for rural outreach of both public and
NGO active labor programs are needed, and public funds from existing programs should be
dedicated to this purpose. This will require much stronger engagement with communities and
SHGs of disabled people.
Providing Effective Social Protection
64. Policies and programs should help improve awareness and targeting of safety net benefits
to the poor and develop innovative approaches to extend coverage of disability insurance.
65. Improving the safety net. A first step in improving the poor performance of safety net
programs for disabled people is familiarizing implementing officials and PRI representatives of
the commitments under the PWD Act. Once such familiarization is done, the next step is for
implementers to make efforts to raise awareness of schemes and PWD entitlements. In parallel,
efforts need to be made in the public and non-governmental sectors to mobilize PWD themselves,
so that there is more bottom-up demand on the delivery system. Formation and capacity building
of PWD SHGs could be an important part of both strategies. Developing more focused efforts
are also needed for specific programs, including: (i) for SGSY, targeted efforts to mobilize
formation of SHGs of disabled people; (ii) for NREGS, adjustment of the national guidelines to
include disabled people and efforts to identify categories of works well suited to disabled people
and processes for ensuring their adequate inclusion; and (iii) for social pensions, review of states
with poor coverage, relaxing the eligibility criteria for disability social pensions, and considering
central funding of a base benefit as is done already under the National Old Age Pension Scheme.
66. Expanding disability insurance. In order to address the demand that clearly exists for
disability insurance, a low cost platform with standardized products and uniform regulations is
likely to be the only approach that can be scaled up at the national level. Such a platform has
recently been proposed under the New Pension System to deal with old age pensions for both the
informal sector workers and civil servants. However, it will be necessary to have far more
coordinated efforts across different arms and levels of government to link various social
insurance initiatives to such a platform. Equally, the role of intermediary organizations such as
MFIs, NGOs, and perhaps PRIs will be critical in improving program outreach and playing a role
in contribution mobilization and claims processing if transactions costs are to be kept manageable.
Strengthening Disability Policies and Institutions
67. At this point, a focus on outcomes for people with disabilities would suggest that the
priority should be on institutional reform in order to improve implementation capacity.
Nonetheless, several policy reforms remain important, and are outlined below.
68. Policy Reforms. Disability policy reforms are needed in several areas: First, there
should be serious consideration given to broadening the categories of disabled people included in
the PWD Act, which may in any event be necessary in light of the new UN Convention to which
India is a signatory. This may also require a de-linking of definitional inclusion of different
groups with specific entitlements under the Act. While fiscal and other capacity issues suggest
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