The State has a total of 13.24 lakh people with disability, and mobility disability affects the most, at 2.71 lakh, according to a report released last week by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, based on the census conducted in 2011.
In terms of total population, it was found that 2.16 per cent people in the State have a disability. According to the 2001 census report, 9.44 lakh people were disabled. The State stands below the national average where the percentage of disabled to total population is 2.21 per cent.
In census 2011, information on eight types of disabilities was collected, compared to five types collected in 2001. During the enumeration process, data was collected on disabilities with regard to seeing, hearing, speech, movement, mental retardation, mental illness, any other disability and multiple disabilities.
The data has sufficient material for the State government to fine-tune welfare policies for the disabled. The data also reveals that there are more disabled males in the State (7.2 lakh) than females (5.97 lakh) and the largest age group with disabilities is between 20-29 years (2.43 lakh), followed by 10-19 years (2.37 lakh).