Disabled population up by 22.4% in a decade

In a decade between two Censuses — that of 2001 and 2011 — the country’s disabled population has increased by 22.4 per cent even as the total households having disabled persons in the country have increased by 20.5 lakh.The latest Census 2011 data, released on Tuesday by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, shows that the number of disabled, which was 2.19 crore in 2001, rose in 2011 to 2.68 crore — 1.49 crore males and 1.18 crore females. And India now has 2.08 crore households with differently-abled persons constituting 8.3 per cent of the total homes. The household figures stood at 1.87 crore in 2001.

The data shows that 50.33 lakh people suffered from blindness, 50.72 lakh had hearing disabilities, 19.98 lakh people had problems with speech, 54.36 lakh were living with motor disability, 15.05 lakh were mentally retarded, 72. 28 lakh had mental illnessnesses, 49. 27 lakh suffered from other illnesses, and 21.16 lakh had multiple disabilities.

According to the census,  20.3% of the disabled are movement disabled followed by hearing impaired (18.9%) and visually impaired (18.8%). Nearly 5.6% of the disabled population is mentally challenged, a classification introduced in the 2011 census. The data on disabled population has been released by types of disability, and their gender. 

The differently-abled living in different types of households are further cross-classified into eight different disabilities- seeing, hearing, speech, movement, mental retardation, mental illness, multiple disability-living in India, further classified into the States and Union Territories.The data shows that of the total households (2.08 crore) having disabled persons, about 99 per cent homes are normal homes, 0.4 per cent are institutional and 0.2 per cent are house-less households.

The differently-abled in normal households increased by 48,19,382, institutional households by 65,895 and house-less households by 22,948 between 2001-11, the data said.Meanwhile, normal households increased by 2,02,4495, institutional households by 8,370 and house-less households by 13,560 during the time, it added.

According to the Census of India, a group of unrelated persons who live in an institution and take their meals from a common kitchen is called an ‘institutional household.’‘House less households’ are those households who do not live in buildings or census houses but live in the open on roadside, pavements etc.