Punjab government today said it will clear the backlog of posts reserved for physically challenged persons in all the departments within a month.
A decision in this regard was taken by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal during a meeting with a delegation of Punjab Handicapped Union led by its Balwant Singh Dardi here today, an official release said.
The Chief Minister asked the Secretary Social Security to ensure that all these vacant posts in various departments, which had already been advertised, must be filled within a month.
Badal also directed him to pursue the case for enhancing the existing limit of loan for physically challenged persons from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh with the Centre.
The Chief Minister decided to allow free education to the disabled children and the wards of physically challenged persons up to class XII in the government and government aided schools.
In another decision, Badal approved conversion of 162 vacancies of JBT/ETT teachers exclusively meant for physically challenged persons into hobby teachers so as to facilitate them to discharge their duties professionally with much ease.
He asked the Social Security Department to prepare a comprehensive proposal for recommending a suitable hike in the pension for these disabled persons so that a final decision in this regard could be taken by the state Cabinet at the earliest.
He directed the department of Social Security to thoroughly examine the case for extending benefits to the physically challenged persons under 'Bhagat Puran Singh Sehat Bima Yojana'.
Badal asked the Secretary Social Security to ensure that their grievances should be redressed on the priority at the district level instead of coming to state headquarters, for which they suffer lot of difficulties.
