I have spent over sixteen years working in digital accessibility, and in that time I have had one conversation more than any other. An organisation reaches out, usually after receiving a complaint or facing a regulatory query, and asks: "Does Indian law actually require our website to be accessible?"
The answer is yes. It has been yes since December 2016, when the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act received presidential assent. Yet most Indian businesses — including many in regulated industries — have never read the sections of this law that apply directly to their digital products and services.
This article is not legal advice. I am an accessibility architect, not a lawyer. But I have worked closely enough with the RPwD Act's provisions over the years to know what it says, what it means for digital products, and why organisations that continue to ignore it are taking on growing risk.
What Is the RPwD Act 2016?
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the older Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act of 1995. The older law was well-intentioned but limited. It recognised only seven categories of disability and had little to say about technology or the digital world — which, in 1995, barely existed in India.
The RPwD Act expanded the scope significantly. It recognises 21 categories of disability, including blindness, low vision, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, intellectual disability, specific learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, and multiple disabilities, among others. It aligns with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which India ratified in 2007.
More importantly for our purposes, the RPwD Act explicitly addresses information and communication technology. The 1995 law did not. This is a fundamental shift, and it is the part that most organisations have not caught up with.
Key Sections Relevant to Digital Accessibility
The RPwD Act is a comprehensive piece of legislation covering education, employment, healthcare, legal capacity, and much more. But four areas are directly relevant to anyone building or operating digital products in India.
Section 40: Accessibility in ICT
This is the most direct provision. Section 40 mandates that the appropriate government shall take measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to information and communication technology, including the internet, on an equal basis with others. It places a clear obligation to make ICT accessible — not as a suggestion, not as a guideline, but as a requirement.
When I audit a website or mobile application for an Indian government body, Section 40 is the statutory basis for that work. The obligation is not optional. The language of the Act uses "shall," not "may."
Section 42: Access to Electronic Media
Section 42 addresses electronic media specifically, requiring that content disseminated through electronic media is accessible. This has implications for video content (captioning and audio description), audio content (transcripts), and digital publications. If your organisation publishes content through a website, an app, or any electronic channel, Section 42 is relevant.
In practice, this means that a bank publishing its annual report only as an inaccessible PDF, or an insurance company releasing a policy document that a screen reader cannot parse, is not meeting its obligations under this section.
Section 46: Accessibility in Public Services
Section 46 requires service providers, whether government or private, to provide their services in an accessible manner. As more services move online — from utility bill payments to insurance claims to banking transactions — the digital interface becomes the point of service delivery. If that interface is inaccessible, the service itself is inaccessible.
This is where the law starts to have direct implications for the private sector. If you are providing a service to the public through a digital platform, Section 46 applies to you.
Sections 89 to 92: Penalties
The RPwD Act includes enforcement provisions. Section 89 prescribes penalties for contravention of any provision of the Act, which can include fines up to ten thousand rupees for the first contravention and up to fifty thousand rupees for subsequent contraventions. Section 92 addresses offences by companies specifically, stating that where an offence is committed by a company, every person who was in charge of the company at the time of the offence shall be deemed guilty.
These penalty amounts may seem modest today. But the reputational damage of a formal complaint or enforcement action, especially for publicly listed companies, carries far greater weight than the fine itself.
Who Does This Apply To?
The RPwD Act applies most directly to the government and public sector. Central and state government websites, public sector undertaking portals, government service delivery platforms — these are clearly covered and have been the primary focus of enforcement so far.
But the Act does not stop at the government's door. Several provisions, particularly Section 46 on public services, extend to the private sector. And increasingly, sector-specific regulators are making this explicit.
Consider the industries where digital accessibility obligations are becoming unavoidable:
- Banking and financial services: The Reserve Bank of India has issued guidelines on accessibility for banking services. Digital banking platforms, mobile banking apps, and ATM interfaces all fall under scrutiny.
- Insurance: IRDAI-regulated entities are expected to ensure their services are accessible to persons with disabilities. As insurance sales and claims processing move online, the digital experience becomes the service.
- Telecom: TRAI has addressed accessibility in its regulatory framework. Telecom service providers' websites and apps are increasingly expected to meet accessibility standards.
- Capital markets: SEBI has issued explicit mandates on website accessibility for listed companies and market intermediaries — a development I have written about in detail in my article on India's SEBI accessibility mandate.
- Education: The National Education Policy 2020 emphasises inclusive education, and as educational content moves to digital platforms, accessibility of those platforms becomes a legal expectation.
If your organisation operates in any of these sectors, the question is not whether digital accessibility law applies to you. It does. The question is how prepared you are.
GIGW 3.0: India's Web Accessibility Standard
The RPwD Act establishes the obligation, but it does not prescribe technical standards. For that, India has the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW), now in version 3.0.
GIGW 3.0 is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the AA conformance level. It adapts the international standard for the Indian context and adds specific requirements around language support, government branding, and service delivery. For anyone working in accessibility, the technical requirements will be familiar: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust content.
While GIGW is technically mandatory only for government websites, it serves as the de facto benchmark for digital accessibility across India. When regulators like SEBI reference "accessibility standards," GIGW and WCAG are what they mean. When a court or tribunal evaluates whether a digital product is accessible, these are the standards they will look to.
I regularly use GIGW 3.0 and WCAG 2.1 AA as the baseline for my audit work, whether the client is a government body or a private enterprise. The technical standard is the same. The obligation is increasingly the same as well.
The Connection to SEBI's Mandate
One of the most significant recent developments in Indian digital accessibility law is SEBI's circular mandating that listed companies and stock exchanges make their websites accessible. This is not merely guidance — it carries regulatory force.
The SEBI mandate is a direct downstream effect of the RPwD Act. SEBI's authority to require accessibility stems from the broader legal framework that the RPwD Act established. I have covered the specifics of what SEBI requires, who is affected, and what the compliance timelines look like in my detailed article on the SEBI accessibility mandate. If your organisation is listed on an Indian stock exchange or operates as a market intermediary, I strongly recommend reading that piece alongside this one.
What the SEBI mandate signals is a trend: sector regulators are beginning to operationalise the RPwD Act's provisions for the industries they oversee. Banking, insurance, and telecom are likely to follow with their own specific directives. The regulatory direction is clear, even if the pace varies.
The Enforcement Gap — and Why It Is Closing
I want to be honest about the current state of enforcement. The RPwD Act has been law since 2016, but enforcement of its digital accessibility provisions has been inconsistent. The Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has the authority to act on complaints, but the volume of enforcement actions specifically targeting inaccessible digital products has been low.
Many organisations have treated this enforcement gap as a reason to deprioritise accessibility. I believe that is a mistake, and here is why.
First, awareness among persons with disabilities is growing rapidly. The disability rights community in India is increasingly organised, digitally literate, and willing to file formal complaints. I have seen a marked increase in complaints related to inaccessible websites and apps over the past three years.
Second, sector regulators are stepping in. Where the broader enforcement mechanism has been slow, regulators like SEBI are creating sector-specific mandates with concrete timelines and compliance requirements. This trend will continue.
Third, judicial awareness is improving. Courts and tribunals are becoming more familiar with digital accessibility as a rights issue. Several recent orders have referenced the RPwD Act's provisions in the context of digital services.
Fourth, India's digital economy has grown enormously since 2016. With UPI, DigiLocker, Aadhaar-linked services, and the broader push toward Digital India, the number of essential services delivered digitally has exploded. The gap between the law's intent and the reality of inaccessible digital services is wider than ever — and that gap attracts attention.
What Your Organisation Should Do Now
Whether you are in the government sector, a regulated industry, or a private enterprise serving Indian customers, here are the steps I recommend. These are drawn from my experience working with over 250 digital products across sectors.
1. Conduct an Accessibility Audit
Start by understanding where you stand. A proper accessibility audit goes beyond running automated scans — it includes manual testing with assistive technologies like screen readers and keyboard-only navigation. Identify your critical user journeys and test each one against WCAG 2.1 AA criteria. This gives you a clear picture of the barriers that exist today.
2. Create an Accessibility Policy
Document your organisation's commitment to digital accessibility. An accessibility policy should define what standard you are targeting (WCAG 2.1 AA is the recommended baseline in India), who is responsible for accessibility within the organisation, and how accessibility will be integrated into your development and procurement processes. This is an internal governance document, but it sends a clear signal of intent.
3. Train Your Development Teams
Accessibility is not solely a testing problem. It starts with design and development. Your designers need to understand colour contrast, focus states, and content structure. Your developers need to understand semantic HTML, ARIA attributes, and keyboard interaction patterns. Your content creators need to understand alt text, heading hierarchy, and plain language. Invest in building this knowledge across your teams.
4. Publish an Accessibility Statement
An accessibility statement on your website serves multiple purposes. It demonstrates awareness and commitment. It tells users with disabilities what to expect. It provides a point of reference if questions arise about your compliance posture. A good accessibility statement includes your target conformance level, known limitations, and a timeline for addressing them.
5. Establish a Feedback Mechanism
Provide a clear, accessible way for users with disabilities to report barriers they encounter. This could be a dedicated email address, an accessible feedback form, or a phone line. What matters is that it exists, that it is easy to find, and that someone on your team is responsible for responding to the feedback received. This is not just good practice — it is an expectation under the RPwD Act's framework of ensuring access.
Beyond Compliance: The Bigger Picture
According to the Census of India 2011, there are approximately 2.68 crore (26.8 million) persons with disabilities in India. That figure is widely acknowledged to be an undercount, as many disabilities go unreported. The World Health Organisation's estimates suggest the actual number could be significantly higher.
These are not abstract statistics. They are people who want to do their banking online, file their taxes, book a train ticket, purchase insurance, read the news, and participate in the digital economy that India is building at extraordinary speed. When a website or app is inaccessible, it does not merely violate a regulation. It excludes a person from a service that others take for granted.
I navigate the digital world entirely through a screen reader. I know what it means to encounter a login form that does not announce its fields, a payment gateway where the "Submit" button has no label, or a government service portal where the CAPTCHA has no audio alternative. These are not inconveniences. They are barriers to participation.
The RPwD Act exists because India recognised that persons with disabilities have a right to participate fully in society — including the digital parts of it. For organisations, complying with this law is not just about avoiding penalties. It is about serving all your customers, reaching a wider audience, and building products that work for everyone.
The law is clear. The standards exist. The tools and expertise are available. The only remaining question is whether your organisation will act now, or wait until it has no choice.
If you need help understanding how the RPwD Act applies to your digital products, or if you want to start with an accessibility audit, I am here to help.