SSEPD Minister Inaugurates Workshop On Odisha Rights Of Persons With Disabilities Rule-2018

Bhubaneswar:  Social Security and Empowerment Persons with
Disabilities (SSEPD) Minister Prafulla Samal on Thursday inaugurated a
two-day workshop on Odisha Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Rule-2018 and its linkages with SDG and UNCRPD organised by
international development organization Sightsavers at CYSD here on
Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said, “Odisha government is
fully committed to the welfare and development of persons with
disabilities. The state rule provides opportunity for the PWDs to
exercise their rights to their full potential. It has given reasonable
space and representation for PWDs at different levels of monitoring,
planning and implementation of the Act. The state rule will bring
massive change in the lives of the 12.44 lakh PWDs in the state.”

Attending the workshop, State Commissioner for Persons with
Disabilities Minati Behera encouraged the PWD leaders to disseminate
the provisions in the state rules among wider disability networks. She
called upon the PWD leaders and the networks to play a prominent role
in effective implementation of the Odisha Rights of Persons with
Disability Rules 2018 through monitoring it at the panchayat, block
and district levels.

State Programme Manager, Sightsavers Akbar Mehfuz Alam highlighted
that the SSEPD department is soon going to sign an MOU with
Sightsavers for promoting socio-economic development for persons with
disabilities and to pilot inclusive eye health services for vulnerable
population in the state. The MOU is already approved by the government
and the signing ceremony will take place in second week of July this
year.

Director, SSEPD, Kailash Chandra
Sahoo and OAS (First visually impaired state civil servant of Odisha)
Sannyas Kumar Behera were present.

National-level disability experts, Ravi S. Behera, Shiba Prasad from
UNDP, Delhi and Senior Counsel at Supreme Court of India Santosh Kumar
Rungta facilitated the workshop.

At the end, Project Officer, Sightsavers Jagannath Nayak, gave the
vote of thanks.

More than 90 PWD leaders from different district disability networks participated in this two days workshop. The workshop stressed the need to emphasize the changes at the panchayat level to mainstream the persons with disabilities. The representatives from various disability
networks demanded that the government should come up with concrete
guidelines and year-mark budgets for making barrier-free environment
and ensure representation of PWDs in functioning of panchayats.