JOIN USGovt asked to reorient schemes for disabled persons
Six years after the Centre increased the number of recognised disabilities from seven to 21, it is yet to reorient its schemes and those of the state governments to include them. A parliamentary panel, taking a strong view of the delay, has asked the Centre to speed it up.
With the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, several new disabilities found recognition. Speech and language disabilities, learning disabilities and victims of acid-attack were included for the first time in the Act that came into force in June 2017.
Dwarfism and muscular dystrophy were identified as a separate class of specified disabilities. Three blood disorders—thalassemia, haemophilia and sickle cell disease— were added to the list.
The standing committee on social justice and empowerment, headed by BJP MP Rama Devi, noted that the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is still revising the scheme guidelines. The process of seeking inputs from rehabilitation experts and state and UT governments to improve the scheme and make it broad-based in view of the increased number of disabilities is still going on.
“The committee is constrained to find that no time limit has been fixed by the department... In the absence of definite timelines, the committee is worried as to how much time would be consumed in the just revision of guidelines as substantial time has already lapsed since the enactment of the Act in 2016. Further delay would only hamper the welfare of disabled persons,” the report read.
The panel also noted the underutilisation of grants and missed targets across various schemes of the department. Most notably, it pointed at the dismal number of grantees of the National Overseas Scholarships for disabled children.
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