Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Kamlesh Kumar Pandey has said that the State government should start a separate wing within the Social Justice Department for handling the affairs of the disabled.
Addressing the media here on Tuesday, Dr. Pandey, who is on an official visit to the State, said he had raised the matter in his discussions with the Chief Secretary and other officials. He said that many States such as Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Odisha had special departments for taking care of the needs of the disabled. Dr. Pandey said the State-level coordination committee and the State executive committee for the effective implementation of the welfare schemes for the disabled, which should meet at regular intervals, had not met in Kerala since November 2015. Dr. Pandey pointed out that Kerala did not have any State-run training institutes for developing professional special education teachers so that inclusive education could be provided to the differently-abled children. Even though the Supreme Court had in a recent order directed the Centre and State governments to fill the backlog of appointments as per the Persons with Disability (PWD) Act, 1996, many State governments, including Kerala, were yet to implement this, Dr. Pandey said. He said Public Service Commission (PSC) would also have to follow the Supreme Court order and that he had apprised the Chief Secretary of this. ‘‘Many government officials have no idea about the PWD Act or the roster system. Backlog of appointments for the disabled has to be filled from January 1, 1996 onwards. The State should conduct a special recruitment drive to fulfil this,” Dr. Pandey said. The Centre was now in the process of framing rules for the new Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPD) Act, 2016, which had been notified on December 28. The RPD Act was expected to come into force from April this year. Kerala is one among the 14 States included in the first phase of the distribution of the Unique Disability Identity (UDID) cards or unique disability certificates, which will be linked to Aadhaar. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/Call-for-separate-wing-for-the-disabled/article17018735.ece Two cities from Kerala —Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi — figured in the 50 cities selected for creating barrier-free, accessible environment for the disabled, under the Accessible India Campaign, -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
