Manipur Social Welfare director Ng Uttam on Monday said all the Persons with Disabilities (PwD) can obtain the electronic-Unique Disability Identity Card (UDIC) for easy access to government schemes all across the country.
The Social Welfare director spoke as guest of honour during the ‘Teaching-learning material (TLM) Kits distribution programme to persons with intellectual disabilities’ at the mini-auditorium of RIMS in Imphal West.
It was jointly organised by the Relief Centre for the Welfare of Differently-Abled Persons, Manipur and State Commissioner for the Persons with Disabilities under the sponsorship of National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (NIEPID), Secunderbad.
Uttam said that the criteria to obtain the disability certificate for PwDs is to have a minimum of 80 per cent locomotors disability or 40 per cent mental disability. He further said that the authorised persons to issue the certificate are the chief medical officers.
Assessment camps have been going on in different areas of the state by the CMOs concerned in collaboration with JNIMS, he said, adding that the people who are eligible for the PwD certificate can get the certificate immediately on the spot of the camp.
He highlighted that the camp will be held in Khurkhul on May 17; in Mayang-Imphal on May 18; in Nambol on May 19; in Moirang on May 21; in Thoubal on May 23 and later in the Imphal area.
The director also announced that the state government has got approval of the ministry to modify 28 government office buildings into barrier free offices for PwDs as phase-I of the total proposed 50 office buildings. The remaining office buildings will be included in the phase-II, he added.
Considering the livelihood of the PwD, the Social Welfare department has given seat reservation to the PwDs in recruitment of supervisors for Anganwadi centres, he said, adding that the department had also approached other departments to provide job reservations for PwDs.
He admitted that the free travel concession card for the PwD is still useless as the public transport run by the government is only MST buses. He further assured that his department will hammer out a mechanism by collaborating with the public transport service providers to provide free travel access to PwDs.
Uttam lastly gave his commitment that the department of Social Welfare will be always ready to take healthy suggestions for the welfare of the PwDs.
Langthabal MLA Karam Shyam while delivering the chief guest speech, pointed out that there are various loopholes in implementing the programmes, which are to be taken up jointly by the Social Welfare and Health department, for the PwDs.
As a result, the PwD are confused and have to run from pillar to post in order to avail the benefits of the programme, he said, stressing on the need to address the issue so that the PwDs do not suffer while applying for the benefits.
The function was also attended by director of RIMS A Santa as president; state commissioner for PwD, Manipu Th Dilipkumar; dean of Academic RIMS Brogen Singh Akoijam; state coordinators of NIEPID Shaik Yaseen Shareef and Rajendra Kumar Praveen as guests of honour.
