'Centre to issue universal ID to persons with disabilities'

The Centre will soon issue universal ID cards to persons with disabilities which will be valid throughout India, Union minister Krishan Pal Gurjar said here today.

At present, an identity card issued by a state is not considered valid in another state, which causes inconvenience to people with disabilities in availing benefits of various government schemes and reservation.

Speaking at a camp to distribute free aids to physically challenged persons here, Gurjar, the minister of state for social justice and empowerment, said in the past three years of the BJP government at the Centre nearly 5,500 such camps have been organised in India for persons with disabilities.

"The governments led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre and Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana have been making efforts (to ensure) not even a single person remains deprived of benefits of the schemes launched by the government.

"Both the central and the state governments are sensitive towards bringing the physically-challenged persons into mainstream," he said, according to an official statement.

At the camp, the Union minister honoured Balram, a resident of Chimni village, who won the gold medal in National Sports Competition of physically-challenged persons held recently in Ranchi.

Haryana Agriculture Minister O P Dhankar said the government plans to install hydraulic systems in state roadways buses to facilitate boarding and deboarding from the vehicles by physically-challenged persons.