Persons with Disabilities

About Persons with Disabilities

As per the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights & Full Participation) Act, 1995 - A person with a disability can be defined as one with one or more of disabilities falling under any of the below mentioned categories :

Blindness:- “Blindness” refers to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions namely:-

• The total absence of sight; or
• Visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 (Snellen) in the better eye with correcting lenses; or
• Limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse;

Cerebral Palsy:- “Cerebral Palsy” means a group of non-progressive conditions of a person characterized by abnormal motor control posture resulting from brain insult or injuries occurring in the pre-natal, peri-natal or infant period of development;

Low vision:- ” Low vision” means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potentially capable of using vision for the planning or execution of a task with the appropriate assistive device;

Locomotor disability:- “Locomotor disability” means disability of the bones, joints or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy;

Leprosy-cured:- “Leprosy-cured person” means a person who has been cured of leprosy but is suffering from-

• Loss of sensation in hands or feet as well as loss of sensation and paresis in the eye and eye-lid but with no manifest deformity;
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• Manifest deformity and paresis but having sufficient mobility in their hands and feet to enable them to engage in the normal economic activity;
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• Extreme physical deformity as well as advanced age which prevents him from undertaking any gainful occupation, and the expression ‘Leprosy Cured” shall be construed accordingly;

Mental retardation:- “Mental retardation” means a condition of arrested or incomplete development of the mind of a person which is especially characterized by subnormality of intelligence;

Mental illness:- “Mental illness” means any mental disorder other than Mental retardation

Hearing Impairment:- “Hearing Impairment” means loss of sixty decibels or more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies