By IANS,
New Delhi: Hundreds of differently-abled people held a protest rally in the city against the “sluggish and careless implementation” of the 11th five year plan (2007-2011) that had schemes for the welfare of the disabled.
The rights group also wrote a letter to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, demanding strengthening of the “disability division” in the ministry of social justice and empowerment, setting up of a monitoring mechanism to review systems, and introduction of new health policies for the disabled.
Javed Abidi, chairperson of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People (NCPEDP), who organised the protest outside the Yojana Bhavan in Delhi, said: “Without considering the sluggish progress of the 11th five year plan, a working group and a steering committee on ’empowerment of persons with disabilities’ has been constituted for the formulation of the 12th Five Year Plan.”
“We cannot possibly talk about the 12th plan without making the government accountable for what it had committed in the 11th plan. And what more can you put in the 12th plan if the basic foundation as laid down in the 11th plan has not been fulfilled,” he added.