Visually challenged decry govt ‘apathy’

Our Correspondent

Jalandhar, February 16

Members of the Blind Person Association during a press conference organised here today announced to hold a massive protest on February 20 in Chandigarh against the state government for failing to fulfill their long-pending demands.

President of the association Kuldeep Singh said they had been demanding for long  that visually impaired persons in the state should be appointed to Group D posts as per the quota share.

He alleged that the backlog of reserved posts in government jobs for them was not being filled and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, had not been implemented in the state.

He said the government must implement the Act by March 31 or else the members of the association as well as visually impaired persons across the state would boycott the Congress in the upcoming general elections.

Kuldeep said in many other states, the visually impaired were being offered government jobs and good wages, while in Punjab, the pleas of the visually impaired were being ignored.

He said institutes for the visually impaired being run in the state were in a poor state due to paucity of funds, but the government was not willing to take these centres in its hands.

Kuldeep said they had been raising their demands on various platforms but the government failed to act.

Other members of the association and the visually impaired who work with various government departments demanded that their incentives should be increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 and that monthly pension of Rs 750 should be increased to Rs 3,000. Besides, all visually impaired students appearing for the Class X and Class XII PSEB exams should not be charged any fees.

They said they had warned the government that in case the Chief Minister did not call them to listen to their demands and resolve these by March 31, they would sit on a hunger strike and would hold protests across the state and the blame of any causality during the protest would be on the state government.

Hunger strike on Mar 31 if demands not met

Protesters said they had warned the government that in case the Chief Minister did not call them to listen to their demands and resolve these by March 31, they would sit on a hunger strike and would hold protests across the state and the blame for any casualty during the protest would lie with the state government.