Social Justice Minister Gopal Bhargava has said that Madhya Pradesh is pioneer in implementation of disabled welfare programmes. He said that Madhya Pradesh has been honoured with national awards for providing employment to disabled people and better implementation of their rehabilitation and empowerment schemes.
Best Employer Award for year 2011-12 has been bestowed on Madhya Pradesh by the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry.
Besides, the Union Administrative Reforms, Training and Information Technology Ministry also conferred National e-Governance Award for year 2012-13 to the state for identification of disabled persons and works for assisting, rehabilitating and empowering them.
Bhargava was addressing a meeting of state-level coordination committee for disabled welfare of the Social Justice Department at Mantralaya here on Wednesday. Additional Chief Secretary Aruna Sharma was also present on the occasion.
Secretary Social Justice VK Batham informed in detail about works undertaken for disabled welfare under Disabled Fund. He informed that a Sparsh Abhiyan has been launched since year 2011 for integrated development of disabled persons. So far, data of over 8.10 lakh disabled persons has been uploaded on Sparsh Portal of Social Justice Department.
As many as 4.78 lakh disability certificates have been issued by holding 1,191 camps so far. Besides, artificial limbs and accessories have been distributed to 68 thousand 182 disabled persons and corrective surgery of 3,705 persons has been performed.
Meanwhile, 3,900 couples have been provided benefits under Nishakt Vivah Protsahan Yojana. At the meeting, discussions were also held on rationalisation of funds deposited in Disabled Fund. The meeting also discussed provision of government service to disabled persons, hurdle-free atmosphere for visiting government and public sector buildings and financial assistance received under Central schemes.
It was informed that 14 thousand 515 posts have been earmarked for disabled persons by various departments. Of these, 1,106 disabled persons have been provided government jobs. Besides, process is underway to fill up 239 class III and 197 class IV vacancies in 19 departments. At the meeting, various voluntary organisations suggested that local disabled persons should be preferred while filling up these vacancies. Disabled persons will also be facilitated if recruitment is done on the basis of merit and walk-in interviews.
Suggestions were also put forth for preparing audio books on various subjects for deaf students. Director Samagra Samajik Suraksha Mission John Kingsley, Commissioner Disabled Welfare Baldeep Singh Maini and members of the committee attended the meeting.