Follow ICMR norms for persons with disabilities: HC

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Thursday directed the

state government

to include in its format a provision to identify and enrol the names of persons with disabilities (PWDs) at the time of testing people for ascertaining the presence of coronavirus in them.


The department for disabled welfare would thus be able to access the details of Covid-19 patients among the seven lakh PWDs in the state at the click of a button, said a bench of Chief Justice

Raghvendra Singh Chauhan

and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy while hearing a PIL filed by

Siva Ganesh Karnati

of Uppal, who was seeking special measures to protect the interests of PWDs during the ongoing pandemic.

The bench directed the government to create special provisions for caregivers too in its circulars and also to train staff accordingly. “Follow ICMR guidelines meant for the PWDs,” the bench said. The bench sought a detailed report from the government by August 23 and posted the case to August 27.

Divya Devarajan, special secretary, disabled welfare, told the bench that the departnment was keeping in place a special mechanism to develop skill sets among PWDs and also striving to identify the specific problems of the disabled persons. “We have as many as 64,000 anganwadi workers and teachers and we will enable them to reach out to the PWDs,” she said. K Saketh, counsel for the petitioner, said that the disabled welfare law provides that the state should support the needs of the caregivers too to protect the interests of PWDs in an effective manner.

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