The Madras High Court Bench here has directed the State government to conduct an extensive publicity campaign to make the physically challenged aware of the need to obtain National Identity Card for Differently Abled to avail themselves of various government benefits besides conducting special camps across the State to issue the cards after medical examination of the applicants.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and C.T. Selvam issued the direction on a writ petition filed by C. Kathiravan who had accused the Virudhunagar Collector and Differently Abled Welfare Officer of not issuing the ID card to him though he made a specific representation. A single judge of the High Court had referred the case to the Division Bench after finding that it involved public interest.
Disposing of the petition, the judges said, though the Social Welfare Department had claimed to have issued ID cards to 11,19,978 people in the State so far, after their disability was assessed to be more than 40 per cent in the medical examination, it had not given district-wise statistics.
No details
Similarly, no specific details were furnished with respect to awareness programmes conducted in rural areas.
Hence, they ordered that publicity materials relating to ID cards should not be restricted to notice boards of Social Welfare Department offices in every district.
Instead, they should be displayed in rehabilitation homes for children and the aged, hospitals where such people went for treatment and such other institutions and public places frequented by the physically challenged and their relatives.
Ordering that the higher education and school education departments should also be roped in for the job, the judges said that necessary instructions should be issued to all Regional Joint Directors of Collegiate Education and District Educational officers to take necessary steps to create awareness of the need to obtain ID cards and display the details in the notice boards of all colleges and schools.
Similar notices should be displayed in offices of civic bodies, Anganwadis, noon-meal centres and special schools under the department of social defence.
The Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority could also conduct camps at taluk level to assess the percentage of disability suffered by the physically challenged and make necessary recommendation for issuance of ID cards, the Bench said.
A single judge of the High Court had referred the case to the Division Bench after finding
that it involved public interest
