The state of Orissa in co-ordination with Impact India Foundation, a charitable trust promoted by the WHO, UNDP and UNICEF have announced the launch of a Disability Reduction Project (DRP) through the signing of 'Bargarh Declaration' at the hands of Government of Orissa, the District Collector and Chairman of Impact India Foundation.

The unprecedented project, under the leadership of the state governor, M M Rajendran, chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, in partnership with Impact India Foundation would cover a million people in six blocks of Burgarh district in a three-year project aimed at reducing by half the incidence of disability and also correcting existing disabilities by 50 per cent in the areas.

The Rs 3.75 million DRP would aim specifically at reducing in a population of one million people in three years, one half of the incidence of a range of disabilities and in the same period of three years, correcting by one half existing cases of specified disabilities. The first project will be in a very poor rural/tribal district of the state of Orissa in eastern India. Twelve to eighteen months thereafter, two other projects if the same size and with the same targets will be undertaken in two other Indian states.

According to sources from Impact India, the main reason for having short listed on Orissa is because of it being the least developed state in India having a per capita annual income in 1998-99 of Rs 8719 (whereas the national per capita income stands at Rs 17,800). Inevitably disability levels in the state are higher than in the country.

Accordingly, for the Disability Reduction Project, six blocks with a total population of 1,012,478 (Batli - 148,483, Bargarh - 215212, Attabira - 153,083, Sohela - 252, 067, Barpali - 121,322, Bheden - 122,311) in 2001 in the Bargarh district of the state have been selected.

According to A H Tobaccowala, chairman of Impact India Foundation, the main thrust of the DRP will be at the level of primary healthcare; the mortality rate of infants; children under five of mothers; malnutrition; vitamin A and Iodine deficiency; acute respiratory tract infection, vaccine use for disease prevention and tuberculosis.

"We must think of disability not merely in the context of the economic cost of maintaining the disabled or wasteful burden of unproductive disabled persons, but more on terms of human suffering, particularly of the mother and child and the emotional suffering of the disabled", he emphasized.

At the corrective level, the plan of action should help reduce by 50 per cent the present heavy burden of curable disablement; cataract, cleft lip and palate; visual impairment; hearing; speech; locomotion (polio); mental retardation and other disabilities.

According to Tobaccowala, the success of the project would depend on inter-departmental and multi-disciplinary co-operation at all levels. "It requires the development of public motivation and community involvement, which is essential to the success and continuity of any such action. The assurance of the state government to assist and participate in these measures is also of immense importance," he affirmed.