Indian Railway Recruitment Rules for PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (PWD) 1The suitability of a post for persons with disability will be indicated in the Employment Notification against each post. In case of some posts, certain vacancies are specifically reserved for them. However, they may also apply as normal candidates against the vacancies earmarked for their respective community i.e. UR/SC/ ST/OBC, for those posts which have been identified suitable for persons with disabilities even if no separate vacancies are earmarked for them.

Concessions:
i) Persons with disabilities are exempted from payment of examination fees irrespective of the fact whether the post is reserved/identified as suitable for PWDs.
ii) Relaxation of 10 years in upper age limit is applicable irrespective of the fact whether the post is reserved or not, provided the post is identified as suitable for PWDs. In addition, the candidates belonging to OBC and SC/ST are eligible for normal relaxation of 3 and 5 years respectively.

Definitions of Disabilities: Definitions of categories of disabilities for the purpose of recruitment are given below:
(a) Blindness: ‘Blindness’ refers to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions, namely:
(i) total absence of sight; or
(ii) visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 (snellen) in the better eye with correcting lense;
(iii) limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse;

(b) Low vision: “Person with low vision” means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potentially capable of using vision for the planning or execution of a task with appropriate assistive device.

(c) Hearing impairment: “Hearing Impairment” means loss of sixty decibels or more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies.
(d) Locomotor disability: “Locomotor disability” means disability of the bones, joints or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy.
(e) Cerebral Palsy: “Cerebral Palsy” means a group of non-progressive conditions of a person characterized by abnormal motor control posture resulting from brain insult or injuries occurring in the pre-natal, peri-natal or infant period of development
(f) All the case of orthopaedically handicapped persons would be covered under the category of “Locomotor disability or cerebral palsy.”

DEGREE OF DISABILITY FOR RESERVATION: Only such persons would be eligible for reservation in services/posts who suffer from not less than 40 per cent of relevant disability. A person who wants to avail the benefit of reservation will have to submit a Disability Certificate issued by a competent authority as appended below.