VISAKHAPATNAM: With a large number of physically challenged people flocking to the Sadaram Camp, being held on the premises of the King George Hospital (KGH), to collect the Physically Handicapped (PH) certificates here Tuesday, the hospital authorities failed to provide them with basic amenities.
Even as the camp is ending on Wednesday, many applicants made a beeline at the special counter set up beside the KGH main gate since early hours Tuesday. However, the camp started at around 9 am. The officials rejected the applications of a few stating that they (the physically challenged) have less percentage of disability and were also prejudiced, for they gave tokens to those who came in the eleventh-hour. Above all, no basic amenities were provided at the queue lines due to which the applicants had to suffer in the scorching heat, the candidates alleged.
The applicants have to verify their Aadhaar, ration and voters’ card by the DRDA authorities to get the main token and then head for doctor’s inspection.
In this long procedure, many of the applicants were sent back as the officials shut the camp at 12 noon. Ch Bhargavi, a physically challenged person who came to the camp along with her father Ch Appala Naidu early in the morning, was sent back like many others. “There were no basic facilities at the queue line. Many of us were sent back saying that the doctors would check only a few,” Bhargavi said and added that many applicants requested the officials to extend the last date of the camp, but in vain.
“We are accepting only 5,600 fresh PH applications. But then, the past beneficiaries and those with less disability arrived at the camp expecting that they would get more pension amount,” DRDA project director V Satyasai Srinivas clarified and also denied the allegations that they were prejudiced towards the applicants.
Scene at the Camp