Differently abled await sanction of monthly allowance

The Department of Welfare of Differently Abled Persons provides an allowance of Rs 1,500 under a Maintenance Allowance Scheme for the mentally challenged and severely affected persons. But additional beneficiaries have not been identified since October 2018. Though there have been more than 18,000 new beneficiaries who had applied, they have not received any amount from the department.

The State government usually makes yearly financial allocation for the department to provide the maintenance allowance. However, the new beneficiaries have not been included for the past 18 months and thus they have not received the allowance. Despite repeated requests to the senior officials of the department, they were only told that the finance department has not yet sanctioned the funds for the given period. “We have requested the government officials through letters and direct applications to release the allowance amount but there has been no action taken,” said S Namburajan, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC). TARATDAC has also written a letter to the Chief Minister requesting to sanction the amount.

Officials from the department said that the sanction is likely to be made in the upcoming financial year.