PwD representation in Central workforce stuck around 1% for over a decade: DoPT data

People with disabilities have never accounted for more than 1.1% of Central government employees in the decade since the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act came into force in 2016, despite that law increasing the reservation for PwDs from 3% to 4%.

The Supreme Court of India on Friday (September 12, 2025) expressed concerns about PwDs who qualify “on merit” being recruited for reserved posts only, thereby denying these seats to lower-scoring candidates in the same category. A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta also asked the Centre to provide information on whether “merit” qualifying PwD candidates are pushed “upward” to unreserved posts to make room for candidates who need the reservation.

According to data from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), PwD employee strength in Central Ministries and departments has stayed in a range of 13,000 to 22,000 since 2011, accounting for 0.5% to 1.1% of all posts. It is unclear how many of these employees were hired for reserved posts.

Highest representation among sanitation workers

In January 2022, the last available date for the DoPT data, there were 21,874 PwDs employed by Central Ministries, accounting for 1.15% of the Central government workforce. The highest representation of PwDs was found in Group C (Safai Karmachari) posts, where PwDs make up 1.93% of all employees; in Group A posts, however, only 1% are filled by PwDs.

In Group B posts, PwD employees’ representation was 1.53% and in Group C (non-Safai Karmachari) posts, their representation was 1.1%.

Over a decade earlier, in January 2011, the total number of PwD employees in the Central government was 15,747, comprising less than 1% of all Central government staff at the time.

Marginal rise

Interestingly, the DoPT’s annual reports show that between January 2016 and January 2018, there was a jump in the percentage representation of PwDs in Central government posts, crossing the 1% mark to 1.13% in January 2018. However, the DoPT’s data has been incomplete since 2018, with not all Ministries’ data included, resulting in the total reported employee strength falling from 30 lakh in 2016 to 20 lakh in 2018.

In absolute terms, the number of PwD employees in Central government posts rose marginally from 20,000 in 2016 to 22,000 in 2022.

Before 2016, the government implemented 3% reservation for people with benchmark disabilities (over 40% disabilities). The RPwD Act, however, mandated that this be increased to 4%, with 1% of this quota set aside for specific types of disabilities.