Politics
For 35 years, Balunkeswar Paikray has actually taken a trip numerous kilometres, knocked on the doors of every authority he might consider. He even reachedout to the Prime Minister of India, and, touched the feet of city government authorities in the hope that somebody would listen. The 55-year-old aesthetically impaired guy in Odisha’s Khordha district, states, “I am not requesting charity. I am defending a rightful share in my ancestral home.”
Paikray states his share amongst the 3 brother or sisters would total up to 40,000 square feet of paternal residential or commercial property in Khordha’s Kadab town. “Now, I reside in less than 300 square feet,” he states, of his space, restroom, and yard.
Paikray’s long battle has actually offered him an agonizing insight into how the world deals with those who can not see, stroll, or act in what is thought about routine. His fight has actually exposed how a special needs, whether present from birth or brought on by a mishap, can deepen an individual’s vulnerability, strip away social standing and, in the labyrinth of administration and household conflicts, lower a specific to nearly a non-entity.
In August this year the Odisha federal government developed a thorough set of standards to secure the residential or commercial property and inheritance rights of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016. Paikray and lakhs of others saw hope.
The relocation has actually likewise been invited by those operating in the impairment sector, who see it as a considerable action towards safeguarding PwDs from discrimination in matters of residential or commercial property, consisting of ancestral, acquired, and self-acquired.
The three-page standards recommended that the Revenue and Disaster Management Department analyze the expediency of providing detailed standards and guidelines to all profits authorities to protect the land and home rights of PwDs.
Among the essential propositions is to keep a register of problems connecting to the home rights of PwDs at the tehsil and Sub-Collector levels, with routine tracking by the District Collector. Activists mentioned that while profits laws supply safeguards for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe neighborhoods– consisting of previous authorization for transfer of their land or residential or commercial property to individuals from the basic classification– PwDs stay more susceptible and need comparable defense.
Securing the differently-abled
In August this year, the Odisha federal government’s Suresh Kumar Vashishth composed to Arabinda Kumar Padhee to provide extensive standards that would secure all PwDs’ rights over acquired and self-acquired residential or commercial property. Vashishth is primary secretary to the Department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD); Padhee is extra chief secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department, under which home is signed up.
The standards were created based upon the RPwD Act, especially Sections 12, 13, 84, and 85. These cast a responsibility upon the federal government to guarantee defense of the rights, residential or commercial property, legal capability, and the interests of PwDs and to avoid all types of abuse, violence, exploitation, and discrimination.
“Persons with impairments are frequently subjected to illegal deprivation of their paternal, ancestral and self-acquired homes due to their physical, sensory, intellectual or psychosocial impairments,”Vashishth composed. He likewise observed that various circumstances had actually pertained to the department’s notification where susceptible PwDs were “persuaded, tricked or unduly affected into moving their stationary homes, are unlawfully denied of their genuine inheritance, or their lands are wrongfully inhabited, cultivated or pushed away by others”. This led to financial exploitation and infraction of constitutional and legal rights.
He recommended consisting of the facility of a regulative system for defense of paternal, ancestral, acquired, and self-acquired unmovable homes of PwDs.
Vashishth required instructions to all income officers to guarantee that PwDs and their legal successors are not denied of their genuine share in ancestral home through scams or browbeating.
The State Commission for Persons with Disabilities, together with district -and block-level officers, supplies an online forum for PwDs to look for redressal of their complaints.
Vashishth recommended instant and expeditious query upon invoice of grievances associating with unlawful profession, infringement, growing, anomaly, or alienation of lands coming from PwDs and rigorous tracking of these homes.
The principal secretary recommended capability structure and sensitisation of income officers relating to the rights of individuals with specials needs under the RPwD Act, and the requirement for embracing disability-sensitive treatments.
Bratati Harichandan, State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, states this is an inter-departmental effort.”We have actually asked for the Panchayati Raj Department to sensitise authorities at the grassroots level so that individuals with impairments are accommodated under federal government real estate plans and are ensured of a roofing system over their heads, especially when they are displaced of their own homes,” Harichandan states.
The battle
Milan Kumar Das, 45, his sibling Chandan, and sibling Mamata, from Bhadrak district, all of whom have 100% locomotor specials needs, are simple targets for those identified to take over lawfully acquired home.
Restricted to a confined 100-square-foot space, the brother or sisters and their 80-year-old mom depend upon each other for survival. Together, they get about 14,000 a month in special needs and other pensions, while subsidised rice keeps cravings at bay. What weighs on them most is not hardship, however the loss of home that they state ought to have been theirs.
“Our daddy was a staff member of Indian Oil Corporation. He had actually bought land and constructed a home here [in Nadigaon village in Bhadrak district]After his death, we were eliminated by other members of the joint household. Just after an authorities intervention, were we provided a small space as shelter,” Milan states.
Milan Kumar Das, 45, his bro Chandan, and sibling Mamata, from Bhadrak district, all of whom have 100 % locomotor specials needs, are simple targets for those figured out to take over lawfully acquired home.|Picture Credit: Biswaranjan Rout
For almost 10 years, Milan states he and his brother or sisters have actually interested the Bhadrak district administration and authorities, looking for justice. “Had we not been physically challenged, nobody might have summoned the nerve to deny us of our adult home,” he states.
In Jajpur district, Prakash Mohapatra, 48, who is aesthetically impaired, fret about his future. “Now I deal with my mom and bro in the town,” he states, fearing the scenario will alter with time. “My duplicated applications for a home under the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) havenot led anywhere, and the application is stuck in some federal government workplace,” Mohapatra states.
He had actually petitioned the Delhi-based Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, in a letter, to consist of all individuals with handicaps in well-being plans. “I might not follow up the case for its rational conclusion,” states Mohapatra.
The State Commission for Persons with Disabilities (SCPD) is flooded with demands to help with homes under the PMAY to PwDs. Following the Commission’s intervention, 19,000 PMAY homes were approved in Odisha for PwDs in 2024-25, according to the State Commission for Persons with Disabilities.
Manjulata Panda, 49, Odisha’s very first aesthetically impaired female to make a PhD and now a speaker in a college in Sambalpur district, is combating to get the household home signed up in her and her bro’s names. He too is aesthetically impaired and is an instructor in a federal government main school.
“Since both people have excellent tasks, we do not have a hard time for food or survival. Our ancestral homes are knotted in a procedural mess, we are not able to tape-record it in our name,” Panda states. In Panda’s case, nobody else has actually declared the land, however she states there are “procedural difficulties” that the federal government should aid with.
Bigger issues
The Odisha federal government’s relocation followed Dr. Arabinda Mohanty, a paediatrician by occupation and an activist on impairment for more than 3 years, highlighted the predicament of individuals with physical and intellectual specials needs. In 2025, he composed to the State Commission for Persons with Disabilities (SCPD) to use up the problem with the federal government, demanding the requirement for such standards.
“I have actually stumbled upon various cases of discrimination versus intellectually challenged and physically challenged individuals. Usually, they do not get the rightful share of their ancestral residential or commercial property,” states Mohanty. He includes that moms and dads of kids with intellectual impairments fret about their kids’s lives after their time.
Harichandan concurs: “Discrimination frequently starts in the house. When adult residential or commercial property is divided, kids and children without any physical or intellectual specials needs frequently get the very best spaces and delight in the finest centers produced by their moms and dads. Kids with specials needs, on the other hand, are regularly pressed into a corner– an annexe or a badly kept part of your home. Kids with impairments are the ones who should have the finest part of their moms and dads’ homes.”
For PwDs, life is typically marked by layers of unpredictability, psychological injury, and betrayal. A kid born with a special needs is often disowned by moms and dads. The concern of residential or commercial property transfer comes later on. The kid is typically dealt with as a concern that nobody wishes to take on.
“Discrimination typically starts in the house. When adult residential or commercial property is divided, kids and children without any physical or intellectual impairments frequently get the very best spaces and delight in the finest centers produced by their moms and dads. Kids with impairments, on the other hand, are often pressed into a corner– an annexe or a badly kept part of your home. Kids with impairments are the ones who should have the finest part of their moms and dads’ homes”Bratati Harichandan,State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities
The Odisha federal government has actually developed MANODAYA, a property center in Bhubaneswarthat offers mental and neuropsychological evaluations, evidence-based psychiatric therapy, cognitive rehab, and assistance throughout the life expectancy of those coping with special needs.
Kids with impairments are frequently given the centre by their moms, a lot of whom get little ethical or financial backing from their partners. These moms bring the extra duty of looking after their kids with intellectual specials needs, while likewise handling their own psychological and individual obstacles.
Redressal of complaints
The RPwD Act attends to the facility of unique courts in every district to handle offenses versus PwDs. “If the cops themselves are uninformed of the arrangements of the RPwD Act, 2016, how will they sign up cases under its appropriate arrangements? And how will such cases ultimately reach the unique courts?” Harichandan states.
The Supreme Court in 2025 modified its case-listing top priorities, positioning cases including PwDs seventh in the order of concern.
Shruti Mohapatra, 63,an impairment rights activist who is herself is an individual with orthopaedic special needs, states those with intellectual impairments are amongst the most susceptible when it pertains to the transfer and security of residential or commercial property rights. “To some level, those with visual, hearing, and orthopaedic specials needs can raise their voices versus discrimination or oppression. Individuals with intellectual impairments are mainly reliant on their moms and dads or relied on legal guardians,” she states.
Mohapatra likewise indicates the absence of disability-friendly centers in the justice system. The lack of interpreters and available court procedures, consisting of files in Braille for individuals with visual specials needs, more substances their vulnerability, she states.
“While society frequently overlooks and disowns individuals with intellectual specials needs, the federal government has actually likewise stopped working to guarantee appropriate job opportunity for them. What usage is unmovable home if it does not supply an individual with an earnings and aid enhance their lifestyle?” asks Kartik Chandra Pandab, secretary of Rourkela-based voluntary organisation Shradha Foundation, which operates in the special needs sector.
Firoz Alam, a gold medallist at the Paralympics and Special Olympics, likewise rues what he refers to as the federal government’s overlook of PwDs. Operating at a tea stall in Rourkela for a month-to-month wage of 5,000, Firoz states that, together with securing their residential or commercial property rights, the federal government needs to take concrete actions to secure the incomes and lives of PwDs by making sure that they get their rightful share of job opportunity.
Paikray hopes the federal government’s standards will lastly assist him declare his share of home before he passes away.
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