BENGALURU: Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Tuesday said that the state has achieved a milestone by distributing 5.86 lakh Unique Disability Identification Cards (UDID).
The minister made the announcement after reviewing the progress of the UDID card distribution process. The UDID cards are issued by the government to disabled people to allow them to avail of several benefits given by the government to disabled people.
“Karnataka has done well in UDID for the disabled in collaboration with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Ramanagara district has the highest number of cards distributed, followed by Chikkamagalur, Bagalkot, Haveri, Uttara Kannada, Belagavi and Mandya districts”, the minister said. He also appealed to people with disabilities to register their names on the UDID portal.
“Getting a UDID card is easy. Once you log in, you can avail many facilities from the government through this. With the UDID cards, we will be able to track beneficiary facilities at all levels of implementation at block and district level, state and national level”, he explained, while adding that the aim of the government is to distribute UDID cards to each and every disabled person, which can be used to avails several benefits across all sectors.
Earlier, only seven types of impairments were considered in disability. But after the amendment of the RPWD Act of 2016, an additional 21 types of disabilities have been included in the list, he said.
He said that data about disabled persons and their disability is also being collected along with their educational and employment background. “People with 40% physical disabilities are being identified as disabled. According to the 2011 census report, 2.21% of people in the country have disabilities”, he said, while adding that special emphasis has been given to providing facilities to improve the disabled person’s quality of life. (ANI)