DEENDAYAL DISABILITY REHABILITATION SCHEME
Feature
Government has renamed
the "Scheme to promote Voluntary Action For Persons With Disabilities
" after Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya on the eve of his birth anniversary
on 25th September. The Scheme run by the Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment will now be known as "Deendayal
Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme". This has been done in pursuance
of the direction of the Prime Minister as a tribute to Pandit
Deendayal Upadhyaya who, as an outstanding thinker, was deeply
concerned about the welfare of last man in the society. Pandit
Deendayal advocated for reawakening the latent abilities of a
person to get him a rightful place in society. Considering education
as a social responsibility, Pandit Deendayal said, "Education
is an investment in the interest of society. Development does
not start with goods, it starts with people and their education,
organisation and discipline… The development of human being should
be to create an integral being… we must re-establish him in his
rightful position, bring him the satisfaction of his greatness,
reawaken his abilities and encourage him to exert for attaining
divine heights of his latent personality."
Promoting
Voluntary Action:
People with disabilities
belong to the families and communities in which they live. Their
assistance can be more effective through utilization and convergence
of local resources. With this objective in view the Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment has been promoting voluntary action
so
that rehabilitation
can be community based as far as possible. Parents/guardians and
voluntary organisations are encouraged to provide rehabilitation
services. This has resulted in coming up of a large number of
Non-Governmental Organisations in the disability sector in recent
years. The Ministry provides them financial assistance and technical
and administrative support under the Scheme to Promote Voluntary
Action For persons with Disabilities.
Assistance
to Voluntary Organisations:
The voluntary organisations
are assisted in running rehabilitation centres for leprosy cured
persons and also for manpower development in the field of mental
retardation and cerebral palsy. They are also assisted in establishment
and development of special schools for major disability areas,
viz. Orthopedic, speech, hearing, visual and mental disability.
The NGOs are extended assistance for setting up projects of vocational
training to facilitate the disabled persons to be as independent
as possible by acquiring basic skills. According to the Social
Justice and Empowerment Minister Dr. Satyanarayan Jatiya the aim
is to enlarge the scope of vocational and professional opportunities
for them for gainful and income generating occupations. The Ministry,
under the Scheme supports both recurring and non-recurring expenditure
of projects by NGOs upto 90 percent. 534 Organizations were assisted
with grant-in-aid worth Rs. 62.13 crore in 2000-2001 and 644 organisations
with Rs.60.82 crore during 2001-2002. Similarly 546 Organisations
were assisted with Rs.50.76 crore from April to December 2002
to benefit over one-lakh persons.
Rationalisation
of Scheme
The Ministry has
been rationalising the Scheme since 1992-92 when it administered
4 NGO Schemes. They were merged into an Umbrella
Scheme with effect
from January, 1999 in order to broaden their objective and make
them in consonance with the provisions of Persons With Disabilities
Act. In the light of the further experience gained in implementation
of the Scheme, the Ministry undertook a detailed exercise on rationalisation
of cost norms. Broadly the new norms define illustrative project
profiles, expectations from these projects, and a desirable cost
profile based on a set of parameters. An effort has also been
made to provide information about the norms of the scheme, revised
application forms and circulars at one place.
