Minister of State for Education, Technical Education, Culture, Tourism, Department of Horticulture, Floriculture and Parks Priya Sethi today said that provisions would be made for permanent recognition of the Louis Braille Memorial Residential (LBM) School for sightless girls as an educational institute for specially-abled persons.The Minister said this while attending a function organized in connection with the 'World Disability Day' at the school complex at Roop Nagar, Jammu.Chairman SSRB J&K, Sarita Chauhan, Convener, National Federation of the Blind, J&K chapter Mohinder Kumar Badyal was also present on the occasion.The Minister said that specially-abled individuals are important members and contributors of the society, irrespective of the physical and intellectual inhibitors they face. She said they deserve due respect as active participants of the mainstream society and efforts need to be made to make the society more specially-abled people friendly.Let us use the term Divyang (Divine Body) instead of Viklang- the commonly used Hindi word for persons with disabilities, as they are endowed with extraordinary power in certain other ways”, the Minister added.
Commenting on the positive role being played by LBM School in equipping specially-abled individuals with necessary skills to navigate life, the Minister committed to extending every help from government to this and similar institutions working diligently for this cause.Responding to the demands presented by the federation that focused primarily on education, training and easy adjustment of specially-abled people in the mainstream society, the Minister assured them of prompt action and said that their concerns will be taken up along right channels to provide early resolutions.The demands included conducting of review of the disable act for inducting further posts for disabled in various departments on account of advancements in science and technology, besides identification and considerate treatment of specially-abled government employees with respect to postings.Requests were also made for a special recruitment policy for Specially-Abled Persons to make employment accessible to various categories of differently-abled people besides request for urgent posting of maths and computer science teachers at the LBM School on deputation basis.