SHILLONG: The 10-year-old dormant Meghalaya State Policy for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) has irked Sajjad M Ali, administrator of Dwar Jingkyrmen, a school for special children.
Ali told The Shillong Times that the policy was circulated in 2009 and drafted way back in 2007 but it was never adopted as it was not tabled before the Cabinet.
Piqued at the delay in adopting the policy, Ali said, “With the formation of the new Act, the Rights to Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, a new policy will be formulated all over again. It will take 17-15 years!”
Appealing to the state government to take steps to initiate the policy, he said, “For God’s sake, hurry up and do something for the policy.”
The Rights to Persons with Disabilities Act was passed in December 2016 to replace the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995.
Ali was also one of the members who took part in drafting the policy and it was circulated by the Department of Social Welfare Office. “It was supposed to be put up to the government sometime in 2009-2010,” he added.
Ali expressed concern that the policy has never been adopted as it was not put up to the Cabinet.
He asserted that the matter was brought to the notice of the Social Welfare Department at least four times and the last time was at the State Coordination Committee meeting on October 19, 2016.
He added that with the new Act, the previous Act of 1995 was revoked, however, he said, “Twenty years from 1995 till 2016, nothing has changed.”
Ali also criticised the Centre’s negligible financial assistance to Dwar Jingkyrmen, and that too after three years.
He informed that the Centre sanctioned an amount of Rs 1,06,513 as full and final installment of grant-in-aid for 2015-16 which is only 4 per cent of the school’s expenditure.
He stated that there were no financial hiccups from the central government till 2013-14 as the grants had been coming regularly in November and March every financial year.
“But from 2014-15, there was absolute difference as money comes after 3 years,” he said, adding the grant for the year 2014-15 was received on November 29, 2016 and the grant for 2015-16 arrived on March 27, 2018.
Ali returned the amount of Rs 1,06,513 to the Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
He maintained that the school runs on charity, donations that come from people and expressed his gratitude to the well-wishers.
Commenting on nomenclatures like, “Divyangan” (divine angel) and Deen Dayal (soft-hearted for the downtrodden), he said, “These are all fancy names, the present central government loves publicity.”
