Reservation in Promotion for Differently-abled Workers

• 02 Jul 2022

Why in News?

On July 1, 2022, Haryana Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal issued a letter to give 4 percent horizontal reservation in promotions to the differently-abled personnel of the state. Benefit of this will be available to the persons with benchmark disabilities covered in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

Key Points

• The Chief Secretary has issued a letter to all administrative secretaries, heads of departments, boards, corporations, chief administrators of public undertakings, managing directors, divisional commissioners, registrars of Punjab and Haryana High Court, Chandigarh, DCs and SDMs besides registrars of all universities.
• The Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, came into force on April 19, 2017, hence the benefit of four percent horizontal reservation will be available from April 19, 2017.
• In the case of promotion, out of the total posts of Group A, B, C and D cadre, four percent will be reserved for the differently-abled. One percent reservation will be given in the case of blindness or low vision, deaf or hard of hearing, locomotor disability, person suffering from cerebral palsy, leprosy-cured, dwarfism, acid attack victim and muscular dystrophy.
• One percent reservation will be given in the case of Autism, Intellectual Disability, Specific Learning Disability and Mental illness, Deafness in multiple disability category from Group A to D combined.
• According to the notification, if any department considers it necessary to partially or fully exempt any post/cadre from the provision of reservation for the disabled, then it can request the Social Justice and Empowerment Department stating the full rationale of the proposal.
• It is noteworthy that the reservation for the backward classes of citizens (Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes) is called vertical reservation. Reservation for categories like differently-abled and Ex-Servicemen is called Horizontal Reservation.