KARACHI, Dec 03 (APP):Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the mental disability among us, the normal people, was the main obstacle and bar in giving space to the differently-abled persons to grow them in the main stream.
“I am committed to rehabilitate the persons with disabilities and to give them their due share in every walk of life right from education to employment opportunities.”
This he said on Tuesday while delivering his presidential speech at a programme organized by provincial Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPD) to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities here at CM’s House.
The programme was attended by provincial cabinet members, provincial secretaries and members of civil society in a large number.
He recalled that on December 3, 2016, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, he was working in his office when his staff told him that differently-abled persons sitting on their wheelchairs were staging protest outside the CM House.
“I called them inside the CM House but they could not embark on the secretariat floor because it had no ramp facility,” he said and added it hurted him so much and the next day he got constructed ramps at all the gates of the CM House/Secretariat.
He said that his government has created a separate full-fledged department for empowerment of differently-abled persons so that they could be empowered through education, physical therapy, medical treatment, encouragement, sports and to make them enabled to compete for government service for
which quota has been allocated.
The Chief Minister said that the schools for differently-abled children have not only been overhauled and
made functional but they have been developed as center of excellence where apart from education complete therapy of the students was made to make them useful and effective member of the
society.
“We are also supporting private sector in providing quality and cheap education and trainings to the students with disabilities, he said.
On the occasion, small children with disabilities clad in cultural dresses staged tableaus on different cultures of the country and presented beautiful colours and earned applauds of the people.
The children also performed on national anthem and national songs and displayed their physical abilities by demonstrating different exercises.
The Chief Minister distributed driving licenses among the person with hearing impairments.
He said that in order to issue them driving licenses the law has been amended and this credit goes to his government being the first one to issue such licenses.