Chandigarh, February 25: Punjab Social Security, Women and Child Development Minister Aruna Chaudhary, on Thursday, affirmed that the department has attained 7th rank in the country for generating online Unique Disability Identification (UDID) cards for the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) as per the UDID Card Status report.
In a statement issued here, Chaudhary said that a total 1,89,323 UDID cards have been issued to the PwDs so far, against the target of 3,58,206 given by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. She said that the department has received 3,27,127 applications on UDID portal, out of which 52.85 per cent (1,89,323) UDID cards have been issued to the persons with disabilities after scrutinizing and verification of the documents, with which the state has achieved ‘Surging Ahead State’ performance level in this project. The Minister said that the department has so far dispatched 1,48,277 UDID cards to the eligible beneficiaries, which becomes 84.27 per cent of the total dispatched cards.
Patting the officers and officials entrusted with the duty of generating UDID Cards, Mrs. Chaudhary said, although the department has been incorporated in the task of generating online cards in the year 2019, since then the employees teams are working with utmost dedication. “Despite the COVID-19 lockdown/Curfew, the state has issued 42,699 UDID Cards to the persons with disabilities”, she added.
The cabinet minister said, we could only be enable to achieve the 7th rank in India for generating UDID cards only with the dedicated staff, adding that the department has expedited the process for generating remaining UDID cards so as to empowering the PwDs for deriving benefits under various government schemes in a easy and transparent manner.
Mrs. Chaudhary said that to attain the target for providing UDID Cards to remaining persons with disabilities, all Deputy Commissioners have been asked to frequently review the progress of the UDID Project in monthly meetings, the Civil Surgeons categorically instructed to digitize the offline issued certificates on priority basis and to reduce the rejection rate of the applications, particularly where documents uploaded by the applicant have minor errors only. Besides this, all District Social Security Officers have been entrusted with the duty to motivate the beneficiaries of Financial Assistance to Disabled Persons Scheme to register them in UDID Portal; the DEOs (Elementary & Secondary) are registering the Students with Disabilities on the UDID portal through Government Schools. The special facilitation camps have also been scheduled at different places of the state, she added.
The Cabinet Minister further added that the state government has recently approved the Punjab Divyangjan Shaktikaran Yojana (PDSY) to empower Divyangjan of the state and provide a supportive environment to them. She informed that the persons with disabilities will not require carrying multiple documents as the UDID card has all the necessary details, which can be decoded with the help of a reader.
