Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Virendra Kumar, today said that his ministry is fully committed to building an inclusive society for people with disabilities. He said this while on a visit to Shillong where he held a meeting with officials of the Department of Social Welfare and other working NGOs.
The Minister said that the disabled are an integral part of human resources. He said that the ministry is working on the vision of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has implemented various welfare schemes for developing an inclusive society and empowerment of persons with disabilities.
Informing about the work done in the last seven years by the minister, the Union Minister said the government is making every effort to provide greater rights and entitlements to the disabled by envisioning an inclusive and enabling environment. Kumar emphasised on skill training programmes and to help them to become self-reliant and independent.
Speaking on welfare schemes of the government, Kumar said that under the leadership of the Prime Minister, the central government has implemented various welfare schemes in the interest of the disabled. Around 10,000 camps were organised after 2014 in the country, wherein more than 20 crore disabled were given various aids worth Rs 500 crore. The minister also informed that his ministry has been working aggressively at drug rehabilitation centres and old age homes in the country and informed that monitoring and surveillance have been made strict at those centres for proper care and security of the inmates.
During the day, Kumar also paid a visit to Kripa Foundation at Upper Lachumiere and spoke with the inmates there.
The minister also referred to “the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2016” while speaking of the welfare initiatives of the government. The types of disabilities have been increased from the erstwhile seven to 21, he added. He said that the government through this Bill has increased the reservation for the disabled from 3 to 4 percent in central government services and 5 percent in education for them.
The meeting was attended by Secretary of the North Eastern Council, K Moses Chalai, Principal Secretary of the Meghalaya government, Sampath Kumar, Commissioner & Secretary, MN Nampui, senior officials of the Department of Social Welfare and NGOs working for the department.
