Chief Secretary AP Padhi on Monday asked all the District Disability Rehabilitation Centres (DDRCs) to conduct surveys to identify people with disabilities (PwD) and provide them all supports as per new Central Government guidelines.
Pathi issued the direction while chairing a meeting on progress of progammes undertaken for empowerment and rehabilitation of differently-abled persons at the Secretariat here. Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disability Department Secretary Niten Chandra presented data for discussion.
Identification of PwDs from childhood and issues related to their treatment, education, training and empowerment were discussed at length.
Development Commi
ssioner R Balkrishnan emphasised on involvement of more voluntary organisations in the PwD rehabilitation and empowerment programmes.
It was decided to provide took kits to Anganwadi Centres for providing treatment to PwD children and to issue disabled certificates to identified children at the earliest.
It was revealed that a total of 12.44 lakh PwDs were living in Odisha as per the 2011 Census. Under the new Act related to rights of PwDs, a total of 21 kinds of disabilities have been included in the rehabilitation programme while there were only seven kinds of disabilities included in the programme earlier.
Hence, the number of PwDs is expected to increase by five times in the State. Persons with sickle cell, thalassemia, Parkinson’s disease, dwarfs, chronic nerve problems, disability to write and learn and acid-attack victims have been included.
Now, DDRCs are working in Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Khordha, Koraput, Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj, Ganjam and Nabarangpur districts and will come up in Keonjhar, Jajpur, Baleswar, Sonepur and Puri districts soon. As many as 18 voluntary organisations have been engaged in PwD rehabilitation and empowerment programmes.