BHUBANESWAR: Even after five years of implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act-2016, which mandates four per cent reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities (PwBDs), hundreds of differently-abled persons employed with the Odisha government are yet to get promotions.
They alleged that the Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) department is yet to bring out a resolution on the four per cent reservation in promotion as provided in section 34 of the act, depriving them of their rights.
Addressing a media conference here, president of Odisha Disabled Government Employees Welfare Association Hemant Subudhi said section 20(3) of the act states that promotion shall not be denied to a person merely on the ground of disability.
“When the SSEPD department was formed and declared as a nodal agency in matters relating to welfare of persons with disabilities, the department brought out new resolutions in 2017 and 2021 on reservation of PwBDs but deliberately omitted the statutory provision relating to four per cent reservation quota available for PwBDs in matters of promotion,” he said.
Many other states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Haryana have already implemented the promotion reservation.The workers further alleged that the department has proposed a new amendment in July this year which has several ambiguities related to vacancies in cadre strength, deletion of term ‘own merit’ and excludes some valid points in the act such as carrying forward of reservation in case of promotion, appointment of grievance redressal officer in every department (who looks into complaints by PwBDs), equal opportunity policy, among other things, which is not in accordance with the act.The PwBDs government employees on Tuesday submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Odisha State Legal Service Authority seeking its intervention.