Nidha - article - accessibility - Web accessibility for Indian designers – part 2 - Lack of Indian Disability accommodation Law

Many nations have laws proscribing denial of access to the disabled, and many nations have applied those laws to new media via web accessibility edicts like U.S. Section 508. These laws prescribe guidelines that are sometime similar to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, which is put out by W3C. But what are the guidelines that an Indian designer needs to follow to so as to develop accessible websites. The answer is simple, try to follow the WCAG guidelines, because India doesn’t have one. What can you expect from a country that took almost half a century after it became a free nation, to come up with a non-discrimination law for the disabled? I.e. the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

One may ask why we need one, if we can follow the W3C guidelines. Well it’s because if there is such law then at least it puts down in ink that federal departments and agencies, as well as the designers who produce work for them need to follow them. It’s all together another point that, will they follow it. The other reason is that if the government can come up with such thing, it shows a genuine concern towards its policy of non-discrimination towards disabled.

The best thing the government can do is to put forward a law that covers computers, fax machines, copiers, telephone, transaction machines and kiosks, and other equipment for transmitting, receiving, or storing information, it also covers the websites like the US 508 does. All it needs to do is to make some amendments in the Persons with Disabilities Act.

In the previous article I had written that there are about 22 million disabled people in India, that was a 1991 National Sample Survey, but the other day I came across other Stat from the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (N.C.P.E.D.P.) where It said 5-6% of India’s population is disabled, which adds up to over 70 million Indians. That’s a staggering, but believable figure as other countries do admit that they have more than 10% population that has one sort of disability or the other.

Now what kind of thinking a individual need to have, to deny any kind of technological access to this population? I think our government has the same kind of thinking. Now we the designers do not need to wait for the government to tell us how to provide access to the disabled. We already have W3C guidelines that we can follow. One should make a point to at least get to priority 1 checkpoints.

Acknowledgments:

• Jeffery Zeldman


• N.C.P.E.D.P


• Arundhati Ray from Ashoka

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