Bhubaneswar, Jan 19: Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Thursday convened a meeting of all departments in Secretariat here to review the implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
He directed all the departments to ensure full compliance with all the provisions of the Act including making reasonable accommodation in public policies and services, providing support for rehabilitation of disabled persons and creating a barrier-free environment to end all discrimination against the Persons with Disabilities.
He drew the attention of the secretaries to the wide range of statutory rights conferred on the PwDs covering education, skill development, employment in public and private sectors, health, accessibility, security, justice, property, voting, sports, art and culture.
He advised all departments to review all their existing programmes and schemes and make modifications and adjustments in policies in order to provide support to the PwDs as per the statutory requirement with a focus particularly on 5 percent reservation in allotment of agricultural land and housing, 5 percent reservation in all poverty alleviation and developmental schemes and 5 percent reservation in allotment of land at concessional rate, where the land is used for housing, business and recreation centres.
District level Committees should be constituted and activated by all departments for proper implementation of the Act. In the state capital, retrofitting of government buildings should be completed at the earliest so that they are accessible to PwDs, he pointed out.
In addition, he announced that 10 more towns namely, Baripada, Balasore, Cuttack, Puri, Berhampur, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Bolangir, Jharsuguda, Jeypore have been identified for accessibility audit and retrofitting of government buildings. All government websites will also be made accessible to the PwDs. Transportation systems including buses, railways stations, airports and bus stops will be made accessible. Special measures need to be taken for providing all amenities to disabled children in both regular and special schools. Training of teachers should be undertaken and adequate number of resource centres should be set up. Universities and colleges and government and aided institutions of higher education department should provide 5 percent reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities.
A state-wide training and capacity building programme will be conducted by all departments to make all key officials and extension workers aware of the Act. Directorates, districts, blocks and local authorities should be made aware of their obligations under the Act so that all forms of discrimination towards PwDs can be ended.
He advised the industries department to hold a workshop with private sector organisations for ensuring at least 5 percent of workforce in private sector is constituted by persons with benchmark disabilities.
Vocational training and self employment programmes should be reviewed and adjusted to accommodate the interest of the PwDs. He directed the health department to ensure that disabilities certificates are issued on time and PwDs have access to all health care facilities including free medicines under NIRAMAYA scheme. Sports and youth services department will undertake measures to redesign infrastructure facilities to suit the requirements of PwDs. The progress of activities will be regularly reviewed and departments should submit their compliance to the SSEPD department indicating status of progress and actions taken by them every month.
