Chief Secretary AP Padhi visited and reviewed the activities of the newly-formed Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disability Department on Wednesday.

Department Secretary Saswat Mishra presented the updates at the review meeting held in his office chamber.

Padhi advised the department to focus on conformation to disability reservation norms in all State PSU recruitments, education of the differentially able children and proper training of the teachers engaged in special schools.

It was revealed that Odisha has a total of 12,44,402  differently-abled persons as per 2011 Census. They include 2,63,799 visually impaired, 2,37,858 hearing impaired, 68,517 speech impaired, 2,59,899 orthopedically impaired, 72,399 mentally retarded, 42,837 persons with mental illness, 1,26,212 with multiple disability and 1,72,881 with other disabilities.

Mishra informed that as of now 7.61 lakh certificates have been issued to differently-abled persons which enable them to avail services under various schemes. Three Appellate Medical Boards, one each at Government Medical Colleges and Hospitals at Cuttack, Brahmapur and Burla, have been also constituted for their treatment.

Near about 40,078 such children have been covered under Banishree Scholarship, 2,135 covered under Pre-Matric Scholarship and 773 covered under Post-Matric scholarship.

A provision of three per cent reservation has been made in PSUs and contractual posts to provide employment opportunities to such persons, Mishra informed.

He further informed that DRI loan has been provided top 2,797 persons during 2014-15. Around 3,12, 945 persons have been covered under disability pension schemes like MBPY and IGNDP. Marriage incentive has also been awarded to 74 persons during 2014-15. Issues relating to trans-gender, welfare of senior citizens, skill development and auto inclusion of persons with disability in NFSA were also discussed.