‘Appoint full-time Commissioner for welfare of persons with disabilities’

Kamlesh Kumar Pandey, Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, on Friday directed Puducherry Chief Secretary Ashwani Kumar to appoint a full-fledged independent State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities in Puducherry.

He said the Secretary and Director of Social Welfare Department had the duty to frame policies and implement the schemes for persons with disability. “It is the duty of the Commissioner to monitor if the schemes are implemented properly. At present, only additional charge is given to an officer to monitor. However, there should be an independent State Commissioner. This issue will be discussed with the ministers and I will stress on them to appoint a State Commissioner at the earliest,” he said.

Mr. Pandey, along with Deputy Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice, on Friday held a review meeting with the representatives of the civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations working with persons with disability on Friday in Puducherry.

Addressing the presspersons after the review meeting, Mr. Pandey said that only 15 States in the country had independent State Commissioners.

“We are in the era of inclusive education. There is no need to start special schools for the visually challenged students. All the normal schools should admit them and the denial of admission is a punishable offence. To help the children with disability in schools, each school should have a special educator. Although there are 440 schools in Puducherry, only a small team of educators are present. I have discussed with the Chief Secretary to appoint special educators in each school and start a training institution to produce more special educators.”

Backlog vacancies

He said that representatives from various associations working with persons with disability had brought to his notice that there were several backlog vacancies in government sectors. “Puducherry government is not in a position to provide detailed information. It will have to collect information from different departments. However, I have told them that special recruitment drive has to be conducted to recruit persons with disability,” he said.

He said that Puducherry government had issued more than 20,000 disability certificates and Puducherry stood second in providing the highest amount as pension. “While Goa provides ₹3,500 a month as pension for persons with disability, Puducherry provides ₹3,000 a month,” he said.

S. Sundaravadivelu, Secretary to Government (Welfare); K. Sarangapani, Director, Social Welfare; and V. Sarojini, Deputy Director, and other staff members participated in the meeting.