Visually-impaired persons hold protest in Shimla

The Blind Persons Association, Himachal Pradesh, today staged a protest outside the state’s Secretariat against the non-fulfillment of their long pending demand of making backlog recruitment in various government departments. They threatened that they would stage a protest “naked” if their demands were not met immediately.

The protesters also blocked the Chotta Shimla-Sanjauli road, hampering traffic movement for a few hours and causing inconvenience to commuters. They also raised slogans against the government.

Rajesh Thakur, Secretary, Blind Persons Association, said that for the past two year, visually-impaired persons had been requesting the state government to make backlog recruitment. However, their demand had not been met till now. He added that visually-impaired persons had been sitting on a protest at Kalibari for the past over 700 days but the state government was paying no heed to them.

“Whenever we intensify our protest by blocking roads and holding demonstrations in front of the Secretariat, the state government gives us an assurance but takes no action. Over the past two years, we have held talks with the state government regarding our demands several times but except giving assurances, the government has taken no concrete action to fulfil our demands,” said Thakur.

He added, “We have been fighting for our rights for a long time, but we are neither being considered in the budget nor are we being provided with jobs. For a long time, many posts reserved for visually-impaired persons have been lying vacant in various government departments but still we have not been provided with jobs.”

The visually-impaired persons warned the state government that they would intensify their protest if their demands were not met.