Considering the demands raised by the protesting visually impaired persons, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh assured to review the backlog and reservation quota of visually impaired in the State. During the consultation with the protesting union held today, Chief Minister assured that service matters of visually impaired to be recalculated with the backlog as per the direction of the Supreme Court and fill the same on cadre basis.
At present there is a backlog of 163 of physically challenged. It was decided that the backlog of 65 of visually impaired would be cleared soon. It was to be decided to relax some qualification norms, particularly for teaching post (B.Ed) in Education department. This was being done for clearing the backlog of around 32 posts of teachers. The decision was taken to advertise the backlog of around 33 posts within 15 days.
It was also disclosed that after 1996, as many as 1750 different posts of physically challenged were filled out of which 554 were that of visually impaired and the process was underway to fill the backlog of 163. Secretary, Social Welfare Ms. Anuradha Thakur said that a high level Advisory Committee would be constituted to advice for school for special children at Dhalli and Institution for Children with Special Abilities (ICSA), Sundernagar.
On the plea of visually impaired to consider the candidates for selection on basis of Braille test, the Secretary said that some conditions were compulsory for which a decision would be taken after consultation with National Federation of Blind, New Delhi. The Chief Minister assured that their demands would be sympathetically looked upon. President Blind Association Mr. Shobhu Ram and their representatives participated in the meeting.
