A web portal to provide comprehensive picture of people with disability at Shahrasti upazila in Chandpur was launched in the capital on Thursday.
The online database, launched under a pilot project, would give information including number, types of disability, age, religion and social status of disabled people of the area.
The portal, www.survey.ypsa.org, aims to provide general understanding of the situation of people with disability.
Actionaid Bangladesh and Young Power in Social Action jointly launched the database through a press briefing held at the National Press Club.
Addressing the press briefing Actionaid Bangladesh country director Farah Kabir said lack of accurate data was the main bar to mainstreaming the people with disability in society.
She said, ‘Most of the time we say 20 per cent of the country’s total population are people with disability but there is huge confusion regarding the total number of the disabled people.’
Farah said different governments so far conducted five censuses but still the country lacked accurate data of people with disability.
According to census of 2001, in the country’s 0.47 per cent people were disabled and in that of 2011 the number was 1.8 per cent which was nearly 20 lakh 17 thousand.
However, according to World Health Organisation and World Bank survey report of 2011, there were 100 crore disabled people in the world, which is 15 per cent of the world’s total population.
Farah said they had conducted the survey as they needed such information to ensure mainstreaming of people with disability.
She urged all political parties to address the issues of people with disability in election manifesto.
Farah said according to collected data on Shahrasti upazila of Chandpur there are 4,740 disabled people against total population of 2 lakh 37,000.
At the programme, chief guest parliamentary standing Committee on liberation war chairman Rafiqul Islam said in the country 80 per cent people with disability belonged to poor class, so policy makers should consider poverty as a challenge in overcoming disability.
YPSA chief executive Md Arifur Rahman, UN committee on people with disability former member Monsur Ahmed Chowdhury and Actionaid Bangladesh director (programme, policy and campaign) Asgar Ali Sabri also spoke.
-With New Age input
