Over 8 percent of Indian households have disabled persons

Over eight percent, or 207.8 lakh, of the total households in the country have disabled persons, reveals data on disabled population in India released here on Tuesday.

According to the data, of the total households that have disabled people, about 99 percent are normal households, 0.4 percent are institutional, and 0.2 percent are households of people who do not have their own houses.

"The data gives the number of households having disabled persons by type of households, including normal (99 percent), institutional (0.4 percent) and houseless households (0.2 percent)," the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India said.

The disabled persons are further cross-classified into eight disabilities - seeing, hearing, speech, movement, mental retardation, mental illness, any other and multiple disability.

Total households having disabled persons show an increase of 20.5 lakh, from 187.3 lakh in 2001 to 207.8 lakh in 2011 - 6.2 lakh in rural and 14.3 lakh in urban areas. Normal households with the disabled persons increased by 20,24,495, institutional households by 8,370 and houseless by 13,560 during the decade 2001-11.

Disabled persons living in normal households increased by 48,19,382, institutional households by 65,895 and houseless households by 22,948 during the said decade, the release said.