Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Thursday assured a delegation, led by independent MLA Bachchu Kadu, that 106 ‘A’ category schools for the physically-handicapped across the state will soon get a grant from the state government. A senior official from the social justice department said that this would cost the state exchequer '29 crore and a provision for the same would be made in the supplementary demands in the Winter Session of the Legislative Assembly at Nagpur. The meeting with the CM on Thursday at Mantralaya lasted for about two hours. Mr Kadu and his organisation Prahar had protested on Wednesday at Azad Maidan and CST railway station to press for various pending demands. According to R.D. Shinde, secretary of social justice department, who was also part of the meeting, the CM approved the demand of giving grants to handicapped schools. The ‘A’ category schools, which are being managed well, will be eligible for a grant that will gradually increase from 20 per cent to 100 per cent in a span of five years. The CM, however, refused to establish new hostels for the physically-disabled as the present capacity of admission is yet to be filled up. Mr Shinde said, “Out of the 1.57 lakh capacity of student admissions in hostels, in accordance with the three per cent ratio, 4,655 seats are reserved for handicapped persons. The social justice department got 1,585 applications, out of which 1,558 students got admitted. Still 3,097 seats are vacant. Currently, 371 government hostels and 2,388 private hostels that receive grants exist. Hence, Mr Chavan did not agree with the demand for district-wise hostels for handicap students only.” It was decided in the meeting that separate toilets and bathrooms would be reserved for handicapped students in each hostel. Other basic amenities like ramps, rods, rough tiles will be used at hostels. These guidelines will be issued to hostels by the social justice department. Other decisions taken were noting of births and deaths of handicapped persons to be made mandatory for gram panchayats and civic bodies; health care centres for the mentally handicapped to be established at the district-level with the help of NGOs, the rule of three per cent reservation in commercial complexes owned by civic bodies and Mhada projects.
