Narukula Sateesh, who has lost his hands due to electric shock, says he would have been able to start a new life by setting up a shop if a loan was sanctioned to him. Another differently-abled person Venkata Sura Apparao also feels financial assistance to set up a grocery stores will help him support his family.
These two are among many youngsters who have become disabled due to various accidents and wish to lead a respectable life on a par with others. They pin their hopes on self-employment programmes to reach their goals but feel that the schemes have largely been inaccessible to them. The ₹3,000 pension under the disabled category doesn’t help them to meet their ends, they say..
There are an estimated 8,000 such youngsters in the district.
Till 2016, the government used to impart skill-oriented training and provide financial assistance to the physically-challenged from the AP Handicapped Persons’ Welfare Cooperative Finance Corporation. However, the corporation later stopped giving financial assistance and confined itself to supplying artificial limbs, tricycles and adult sticks. The banks too are insisting on sureties from government employees to sanction loans. Thus they are deprived of any financial assistance triggering demands for an action plan from the government for their uplift.
“Since 1992, we have been observing the International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3 every year. But the issues of the differently-abled persons have remained unresolved. Their lives will not improve unless there is an exclusive policy for their welfare,” says Sri Gurudeva Charitable Trust founder Raparthi Jagadeesh Babu.
According to him, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) and other Central organisations should hold a meeting with the stakeholders and officials of State governments to launch skill-oriented training programmes in all the districts of the country. “Exclusive industrial clusters can be established to train and provide jobs for the differently-abled persons,” he says.
