CHENNAI: The College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind on Wednesday staged a protest in Chennai demanding that the state government release a white paper detailing the number of persons with disabilities employed in government jobs across Tamil Nadu.
They said such a document would help assess whether job opportunities for the disabled have improved since the DMK came to power.
The association also urged the government to scrap the recently issued Government Order (GO) 24, dated October 31, which allows eligible Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBDs) who are temporarily employed in government jobs to earn additional marks in recruitment exams conducted over the next three years for posts in government departments, local bodies, universities and public sector undertakings.
However, the GO has declared earlier circulars, GO 151 issued in 2008 and GO 20 issued in 2023, as inoperable and redundant. It stated that no PwBDs were found working in permanent sanctioned posts with two years of service on consolidated pay as of October 16, 2008, a requirement for regularisation under GO 151. It further noted that regularising the 1,077 temporary workers in non-sanctioned posts would violate Supreme Court directions on regularising temporary employees, rendering the order “inoperable”.
Similarly, GO 20, which mandated a special recruitment drive for PwBDs, has been termed “redundant,” with the government claiming that backlog vacancies are already being addressed through provisions under Section 34 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. The association warned that it would stage a statewide protest on December 3, if the government fails to withdraw GO 24 and reinstate the earlier orders.