LAHORE: The current growth rate of Persons with Different Abilities (PWDs) in Pakistan is at 2.65 percent per annum which is more than the annual growth rate (2.03 percent) of the total population in the country, according to an official document prepared by the Social Welfare and Bait-ul-Maal (SW&BM) Punjab.
"In the absence of regular census in Pakistan, the projected or estimated numbers of PWDs is 5.035 million, more than the population of Norway, New Zealand, Lebanon and Kuwait," the document reads, a copy of which is available with Business Recorder.
The document says that the SW&BM Punjab with the help of the District Assessment Boards (DABs) from across Punjab registered 23,249 PWDs till June 2020. "Out of them, 13,591 were physically disabled (not fit to work), 3,585 visually impaired, 3,118 deaf and dumb and 2,955 are persons with mental disabilities," it revealed.
An official privy to the information said that the Punjab government is planning to undertake several developmental projects for special persons living in the province. "For the purpose, the government has recently approved release of Rs 250 million for the establishment of Disabled Persons Management Information System (DPMIS)," the official added.
Under the initiative, the official said, the SW&BM with the help of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) would develop an online registration and assessment of PWDs by offering them opportunity for online submission of their applications and tracking progress made on their applications besides providing them information like assessment board meetings and delivering registration certificate at their doorstep.
Under the DPMIS, the deployment of monitoring system and visitor management information system (VMIS) for Darul Amans to monitor all micro activities or issues arising for staff, sheltered people and their visitors.
Other initiatives that would be taken are development of management information system (MIS), deployment of monitoring system for Model Children Homes (Orphanages), development of gender segregated database of registered PWDs along with their status of employment or unemployment and nature of services availing from the government, development of database of jobs in public and private sector against three percent disabled quota to find out suitable jobs as per their capacities along with online referral mechanism against these jobs and their status and development of online mechanism where private sector can find suitable persons against three percent quota to use skills and expertise of PWDs to enhance their productivity.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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