A special initiative of the government to appoint more differently-abled persons is facing several obstacles.
According to K Vimal Kumar, state president of the Differently-abled People’s Congress, certain vested interests were trying to sabotage the initiative that aims at bringing the differently-abled into the mainstream.
“The government had recommended that the differently-abled persons who were working as temporary employees through the employment exchange between August 16, 1999, and December 31, 2003, should be given appointment in government services. The Social Justice Department had issued a government order on August 7 regarding the same. But certain elements in the bureaucracy are trying to scuttle the historic order,” he alleged.
It is reported that many governmental departments are adopting an indifferent approach to the order.
K Biju, district secretary of the Differently-abled People’s Congress, said several differently-abled persons from the district were being denied a job in spite of the government order.
“Four posts reserved for the differently-abled are lying vacant in the Rural Development Department office at the civil station. The vacancies are of two lower division clerks, a village extension officer and a driver. On the basis of the government order issued on August 7, some differently-abled temporary employees had submitted their applications for the posts to the Assistant Development Commissioner and Rural Development Department.
But district officials claim that they have not yet received a formal communication from the headquarters of the Rural Development Department about it,” he said.
Several such vacancies in the Collegiate Education Department and corporations like the Kerala Headload Workers’ Welfare Board too have not been filled.
Kalathil Abdulla, chairman of the Kerala State Handicapped Persons’ Welfare Corporation, said the government should treat the problems of differently-abled people in a more sensitive fashion.
“According to the new government order, 1,399 differently-abled persons can get government jobs. If all departments take it seriously, it will create wonders,” he said.