Bhubaneswar: To maintain transparency, the Department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) has decided to make Aadhaar mandatory for its two state sector schemes.
The Department has taken steps to make Aadhaar number mandatory for ‘award of incentive for marriage between PwDs & normal persons,’ and ‘free laptop to visually impaired students pursuing higher education, officials said.
The SSEPD Department has drafted the notification and asked the Odisha Computer Application Centres (OCAC) to publicize the final notification, in this regard.
“It is requested that the draft notifications may kindly be verified to ensure the compliances of all required statutory and IT related provisions and the vetted draft notifications may please be sent to this Department for further action at this end,” read a letter issued by the SSEPD Department to OCAC.
In pursuance of section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (18 of 2016), the State Government is going to issue notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of the schemes.
The Aadhaar mandatory will check duplicity in beneficiaries and the Department can get all details of the beneficiary in just one click, the officials said.
In a bid to promote social harmony, the State Government had decided to give a cash award of Rs 50,000 to a normal person for marrying a Person with Disability (PwD) in 2017. The incentive amount has been enhanced to Rs 2.5 lakh in 2021.
The incentive is being provided for the wedding between a normal person irrespective of category of disability and a PwD so as to mainstream the latter in the society.
Similarly, the SSEPD Department has been providing free laptops among meritorious visually impaired students for pursuing higher education. The laptops are equipped with computer screen reader software – Job Access with Speech (JAWS). The software enables the students to read the computer screen through text-to-speech output or through a Braille display connected to the laptop. The laptops also come pre-loaded with basic study material to help the students.