Excelsior Correspondent
BARAMULLA, Feb 16: Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Thawar Chand Gehlot today inaugurated Mega Rehabilitation Camp organised by Composite Regional Centre Srinagar in collaboration with District Administration Baramulla at Showkat Ali Stadium.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, the Union Minister said such camps not only serve as important source of awareness for the people, but also ensure transparency and fairness. He said several camps have been so far conducted across the country since last 21 months and about 3,75,000 persons have been provided appliances adding the details about the beneficiaries and aids provided at the camps have been kept available at the Ministry’s website.
Mr. Gehlot said that the Government is providing pre-matric, post-matric scholarships besides scholarships for studying abroad or for achieving professional degrees to differently abled students. He said the Government is keen for not only providing skill development training programmes for the differently able people, but also ensuring financial support for them besides providing them scholarships during the training programme.
Expressing happiness over holding of the awareness camp, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Krishna Pal Gurjar, highlighted the fact that persons with different abilities need support and affection to make them supportive for themselves and for other people. He said that employment and skill development programmes and other schemes are being taken up with rigorous efforts.
Addressing the gathering, MLA Baramulla, Javed Hassan Beig and MLA Gulmarg, Mohammad Abbas Wani stressed on putting more efforts in helping out people with different kind of disabilities especially persons suffering from drug addiction. They appreciated the role of the concerned for conducting such mega camps in the district and hope that more such camps would be held in near future across the district.
The Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla, Yasha Mudgal in her address said there is need for support, affection, rehabilitation measures and adequate training for such people while calling for more efforts in this regard. She said that over 10,000 people with different abilities comprising of 1.2 % population are present in the district.
Later, the Union Minister distributed free appliances and aids among the persons with disabilities. The pre-identified beneficiaries were provided with 2014 assistive devices and aids, which includes 10 Motorised tricycles, 100 wheel chairs for children, 20 Wheel chairs for adults, 250 hearing aid BITE, 100 MSIED Kit, 290 Crutches (Axilla and Elbow) and other appliances.
Joint Secretary, Department of Empowerment, Awanish K. Awasthi, Director Social Welfare, Kashmir, Hashmat Ali Yattoo and other officers were present during the function.