25,000 persons with disabilities in Kangra district, but facilities grossly inadequate

Tribune News Service

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Dharamsala, August 25

Persons and children with disabilities hardly have any facility in Kangra district. As per the data taken from the Department of Welfare, there were 25,000 persons with disabilities in Kangra district out of which 15,000 have over 40 per cent disability. These also include more 4,000 children.

To cater to these thousands of persons with disabilities, there were just three schools being run by private NGOs to train and educate them. These schools are catering to just about 150 children with disabilities. In government sectors just two schools, one each in Dharamsala and Nagrota Bagwan, have resource persons to train children with disabilities but they were hardly training any person.

Anuradha Sharma, who runs a school for special children in Khaniara area of Dharamsala under her NGO Surya Udhay Trust, said that she had a limited infrastructure and she was educating and training 53 special children. “I have a waiting list of 168 students but I cannot take them due to limited availability of space and infrastructure.”

She said that two other NGOs — Harmony Trust in Dharamsala and one in Palampur — were also teaching and giving vocational training to about 50 students each. The infrastructure for providing training and education to special children and people with disabilities in Kangra district was grossly inadequate, she said.

Ram Charan Meena, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, was here in Dharamsala on Friday to inspect facilities available in the district for persons with disabilities. He said that the Government of India was providing grants for training teachers and parents in educating and providing vocational training to children and persons with disabilities. Unfortunately, in entire Himachal Pradesh just eight NGOs have applied for grants under the scheme. The government has identified 2.16 crore people with disabilities in the entire country out of which unique ID cards have been issued to about 1 crore people. “We intend to maintain data regarding all the people with disabilities in near future so that they can get benefits of government schemes,” he said.

Saurabh Jassal, ADC Kangra, said that many persons with disabilities were not able to take benefit of schemes available for them due lack of awareness. “We would soon launch an awareness drive so that the information regarding schemes reach the needy people,” he said.

Jassal admitted that there were 25,000 persons with disabilities in Kangra district out of 15,000 have more than more than 40 per cent disability.

Surya Udhay Trust that was running one of three schools for special children in Kangra had applied under a government project to state government for land to expand their services about three years ago. However, project was yet get any response from government.

3 schools being run by NGOs, 2 by govt

• There are just three schools that are being run by private NGOs to train and educate them. These schools are catering to just about 150 children with disabilities
• In government sector, just two schools, one each in Dharamsala and Nagrota Bagwan, have resource persons to train children with disabilities
• Schools bring run by private NGOs have long waiting list of students with special abilities seeking admissions
• Just 8 NGOs have sought grant from government to run schools, says deputy secretary from the Ministry of Social Justice