ISLAMABAD, July 12: Disabled, impaired and handicap (DIP) persons are normal and could do with less prejudice of otherwise normal humans who have been spared disabilities.

This consensus was achieved at the round table workshop convened by the Patients Welfare Society at the National Institute for Handicapped here on Saturday.

President of Disabled Rehabilitation Independence Programme (DRIP) Mohammad Ilyas Chaudhry presided over the workshop.

A number of educated leaders of the disabled section of the society, including chartered accountants, IT experts, masters and graduates attended the session.

An MBA as well as a trained accountant, Atif Sheikh, made a presentation on “the national policy for persons with disabilities, 2002” announced by women development, social welfare and special education ministry on June 20.

“We should enrich the national policy with inputs of the real needs of the disabled persons, who”, he opined, “were probably not consulted in policy formulation.” As such, the policy suffers from a number of deficiencies, including a reasonable count of the number of DIP, which places it at 2.94 per cent whereas the UN studies place their number at 10 per cent of the population, he stated.

Accordingly, the quota of 2 per cent fixed by the government for employment of handicapped persons, which is generally ignored and not properly enforced, needs to be enhanced to 10 per cent.

He also pointed out the anomaly according to which all the emphasis was placed on primary education and non at all on higher education after coming out of primary schools at the end of five years. These five years, in which most juveniles stray into undesirable activities, were extremely important in the career span of children. In any case, a disabled person, who is normally discriminated against could only get a peon’s job.

What about those who overcame the disability and managed higher qualification? Atif Shaikh pointed towards Shafiqur Rahman, a participant at the meeting who, after obtaining master’s degree in political science from the Quaid-i-Azam University, was entitled to BS-17, but could only land an assistant’s job.

Cutting in on him, the deputy director National Institute of Health said some government departments were not aware of the concessions provided by the government for the DIPs. The government must circulate and enforce facilities made available, as well as the national policy to each government department.—Jonaid Iqbal