Hyderabad: Disabled deprived of Aasra pensions in Rajendranagar

Rajendranagar: With no full time project officer available and a proper liaisoning system at Urban Community Development (UCD) section in GHMC office Rajendranagar, the people with disabilities are facing trouble to get SADAREM (Software for Assessment of Disabled for Access Rehabilitation and Empowerment) certificates thereby deprived of availing Aasra Pensions from the government.

While people with severe disability were asked to attend the SADAREM camp miles away from their homes without any transport facility, in some cases, the applicants are deprived of from the pension even after acquiring the certificate with more than 50 per cent disability. Ironically, some beneficiaries are not receiving the pension for quite some time after getting benefitted with the same for almost three years.

In cases like Mohd Imtiaz, a 20-year-old mentally challenged man with complete paralytic body, it is quite impossible for the parents or escorts to take him to the camp at Kondapur which is 20 km away from their house without end-to-end transport facility.

The parents of Imtiaz, Mohd.Aijaz and Zahida Begum residing at Rizwan Colony, Shastripuram, are running pillar to post to get SADAREM certificate for Imtiaz since four to five years but all their efforts didn't bear the result so far.

Let alone issuing SADAREM certificate, the mentally challenged Imtiaz didn't even get any transport facility from the official machinery to reach the camp. The officials are saying that they don't have any authority to provide any transportation in such cases.

In another case a deaf man, Mohd Aleem also from Rizwan Colony, Shastripuram, who received Aasra pension from the government for almost three years, has been deprived from the same since last one year.

"The online website of consisting the names of Aasra beneficiaries, has cancelled the enrolment of Aleem who has been suffering from deafness since birth.

The doctors at Koti Government Hospital had issued him a certificate after careful examination a few years back based upon which SADAREM certificate was issued to him with 68 per cent physical disability. However, he is being denied from the pension being extended to the disabled people," said Zahida, mother of Mohd Aleem.