Disabled being left out of quotas

hyderabad: the department of disabled welfare has found 60 cases of violations by prominent educational institutions and government departments in the implementation of various schemes for the physically challenged persons. the violations came to the notice of the department in april last year. while the osmania, andhra and n g ranga agricultural universities, besides a few other educational institutions, have reportedly not followed the rules governing admissions in various courses for disabled persons, the departments functioning in the medical and health sectors have failed to provide adequate care for the disabled people.a couple of public sector undertakings under the government of india have also been found to be discriminating against physically-challenged persons. acting tough on such violations, the department has slapped fines ranging from rs 300 to rs 20,000 on each erring department, depending on the magnitude of the problem. the department has the jurisdiction to function as a tribunal to take penal action against erring institutions. its commissioner has quasi-judicial powers and is empowered to verify implementation of reservation for the disabled in education, and employment and discrimination at the workplace. commissioner for disabled welfare g sundarvadan is planning to detect more such violations in other departments too. "we will take action against anybody found violating the rules, framed under the persons with the disabilities act, 1995," sundaravadan told times news network. under the act, all the educational and government departments have to reserve three per cent of seats to people with disabilities. three per cent of the funds earmarked for poverty alleviation programmes should be utilised for the disabled, he said. earlier the government has recognised only four categories of disabilities - orthopaedically challenged, visually challenged, hearing impaired and mentally retarded. three more categories have been added to the list of disabilities, which include low-vision, leprosy-cured and those with mental illness. according to the available statistics, there were about 45 lakh physically and mentally challenged people in andhra pradesh. the state government has allocated about rs 20 crore to the department, to take up welfare activities for the disabled people.