Basic Facilities to Persons with Multiple Disabilities

The National Trust, a statutory body set up under the “National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999”, has been implementing various schemes to provide better education and other basic facilities to its target group as under:-                

        i.            Under Early Intervention/School Readiness Program “Aspiration” Scheme, 79 Centers have been set up to provide Early Intervention/School Readiness program to Children in the age group of 0-6 years.   

      ii.             Under the “Gyan Prabha” Scholarship scheme, scholarship of Rs. 1000 per month is provided to undertake vocational training and skill development Programme. 

    iii.            Under the residential care program “Samarth”, 119 centers have been set up in the country to provide short term and long term residential care facilities. 

    iv.            Under Caregivers Training and Deployment Scheme “Sahyogi” Caregivers are being trained to provide care giver facility.

Besides, two National Institutes under the Ministry namely National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped, Secunderabad (NIMH) and the National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities, Chennai (NIEPMD) also provide comprehensive services to mentally retarded persons and persons with multiple disabilities respectively.

National Trust is implementing the “Niramaya” health insurance scheme under which health services upto Rs. 1 lakh is being provided to the target group.  The scheme is being implemented by over 800 registered organizations of National Trust across the country (expect J&K).

The Ministry and the National Institutes have multifarious strategies, including use of print and electronic media, to create awareness about the schemes for persons with disabilities.  National Trust also organizes a pan-India mass disability awareness campaign called ‘Badhte Kadam’ every year to make people aware about this scheme and other activities of National Trust.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment,          Shri D. Napoleon in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

Source : press Information Bureau ( 27th Feb 2013 )