Government to provide jobs to those with learning disabilities

Government jobs for the differently-abled with learning disabilities are being opened in India nine months after the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act came to play, according to a report in The Economic Times.

The Centre directed that a 3-4 percent reservation should be reserved in government jobs for persons with autism, Down syndrome, intellectual disabilities, specific learning disabilities and acid attack victims.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has framed rules for reserving, advertising and occupying government vacancies across all the groups. The concerned ministries have to follow the norms starting this year.

The office memorandum dated January 15 has been reviewed by the paper. The document specifies 1 percent reservation for differently-abled with low vision and blindness, 1 percent for deaf and hard of hearing, 1 percent for locomotor disability and 1 percent for autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness. For example, if a person has multiple disabilities, he or she will compete with persons in the third category with intellectual disabilities.

The employment rules also point at a procedure to exempt a cadre or establishment from the reservation for differently-abled. Suppose the ministry wants to exempt a cadre wholly or partly from the provisions of reservation, it can make a reference to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD). Generally, exemptions are opted because of the nature of the work which is being carried.

Then, the DEPwD can consult the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) and take a call. Every candidate is required to produce a certificate of disability and suppose they are selected for a government job, they will have to undergo a medical fitness test.