People with disabilities to have unique IDs

HYDERABAD: The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities under the ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has launched a program, which would create a database of people with disabilities. Under the programme, many states are generating the unique IDs for this programme. This would allow the people with disabilities to avail their IDs, countrywide.

Telangana government would also be participating in the programme.

The institute, with other partners had conducted a study to determine the prevalence of disability in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 and 2017.

Director of IIPH, Hyderabad, G.V.S.Murthy has stated that interventions were made, to reduce the stigma associated with disabilities, which included getting people with disabilities to organize health camps in villages. This changed the attitude of people towards the people with disabilities.

The baseline study’s author stated that the prevalence of disability in the study group was 10.4 percent, which reduced down to 9.3 percent in 2017, following interventions.

They also stated that they hope the study would influence the policy in context of government interventions.

Mr. Jagadeeshwar stated that the finding of the study would be evaluated by the government.