The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Minister slams bureaucracy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 05, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Minister slams bureaucracy

Special Correspondent

Lapses in implementing schemes for persons with disability

— Photo: S. S. Kumar

MOMENT OF HONOUR: Minister of State for Social Justice Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan presenting a cash prize to G. Harsha, who made light of a visual and orthopaedic handicap, to win three prizes at the Braille reading and writing competitions organised by the Joint Committee for the Louis Braille Bicentenary Celebrations in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: Union Minister of State for Social Justice Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan on Sunday slammed the bureaucracy for serious lapses in implementing various government welfare schemes for persons with disability.

Addressing the Louis Braille bicentenary celebrations organised by a host of organisations for the blind, Ms. Jagadeesan said often, the government’s efforts to mainstream persons marginalised due to various forms of disability were frustrated by a “callous bureaucracy” that stalled the benefits from reaching the target population.

To illustrate the problem, the Minister pointed to the experience with the 3 per cent reservation announced by the Centre for persons with disability. Most departments failed to even initiate the process citing tenuous excuses and the backlog was steadily mounting.

“We keep repeatedly writing to these departments… but to no avail,” said Ms. Jagadeesan. At the same time, there were a few departments that exceeded the government stipulated percentage and recruited disabled persons in 5 to 6 per cent of vacancies, she noted.

Pat for State

Tamil Nadu, the Minister, said was an honourable exception and enjoyed a track record of several pioneering initiatives for persons with disability. Recently, it became the first State to provide a monthly subsistence allowance of Rs.500 to the families of children with mental retardation. The aid was given uniformly and irrespective of whether the child’s family was affluent or poor.

R.M. Palanichami, MLA, said that Braille had not only changed the lives of the blind people across the world; the language had become universal.

K. Pandia Rajan, managing director, Ma Foi consultancy; K.C. Anand, managing director, Healthsoft India; Kris Arvind, chief of CGN Consultancy; Sarath Babu, who rose from humble origins to become an IIM graduate; V. Sivaraman, convener, the joint committee for Louis Braille Bicentenary Celebrations; and P. Chandrasekar of the National Association for the Blind also spoke.

A Braille calendar for 2009 brought out by the National Association for the Blind was released on the occasion. Braille versions of the ‘Life Story of Louis Braille,’ published by the Indian Association for the Blind, and ‘Viral Nuniyil Viduthalai,’ published by the Welfare Foundation of the Blind, were also launched.

Worth Trust, which allied with Vidya Vriksha for a presentation on technological tools for Braille-based literacy and education, also hosted an exhibition of visual aids.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu