Nearly 15 years after it was formed,the Department of Disabled Welfare of the state government has finally overcome its disabilities,as it will have its own officers posted in the districts. So far,the responsibility of district disabled welfare officer was discharged by officers from the social welfare department. The first batch of 25 disabled welfare officers,who have been recruited by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC),will be posted in 25 districts. The department hopes that by the end of the year,all 71 districts will have their disabled welfare officers. On Wednesday,the 25 officers attended a sensitisation workshop in Lucknow along with director disabled welfare and other senior officials. The workshop was jointly organised by the state department and Sense International (India),a Gujarat-based NGO working on multi-disabilities. The department was created in 1995 but the posts for the district-level welfare officers could not be created at that time. Later,we created the posts but due to lack of staff we were forced to work with borrowed staff and officers. Work suffered,as primarily we could only deal with disbursement of pensions and that too was not flawless, said Shailesh Krishna,Principal Secretary to the chief minister and Principal Secretary (Disabled Welfare). The state government then approached the UPPSC for direct entry of officers at the state level. Since the post and offices have been created,we will now start recruiting lower staff as well, added Krishna. The recruitment of officers has been hailed by organisations working for the disabled in the state. Amresh Chandra,the regional coordinator of Sense International which conducted the workshop,said that with its own officers,the department can now concentrate better on the welfare of disabled people in the state. The schemes were not being implemented properly and one could not even keep a tab on the existing works because of this. But with their own officials,the department will certainly have more hands to help the disabled, said Chandra.
