The Union government has issued 31 lakh Unique Disability ID (UDID) cards to disabled people across the country so far, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar said in Hyderabad on September 15.

The government has also filled 15,000 jobs that were meant for disabled during the past five years, he said.

“These cards would also be linked to the Aadhaar card to help persons with disabilities all over the country in a seamless fashion,” Gurjar said.

The NDA government has increased the number of ‘divyang’ categories from seven to 21 to enable many such people to avail facilities under various schemes, he added.

Background

According to the 2011 Census, there are 2.68 crore persons with disabilities (PwDs) in India (2.21 per cent of the total population).

The UDID card will be the single document of identification, verification of the disabled for availing various benefits in future.

The project initiated by the department of empowerment of persons with disabilities aims at building a holistic end-to-end integrated system for issuance of universal ID and disability certificates for persons with disabilities with their identification and disability details. This card will be valid pan-India.

It is being implemented with a view of creating a national database for PwDs.

PwDs will not need to make multiple copies of documents, maintain and carry multiple documents as the card will capture all the necessary details which can be decoded with the help of a reader.

The project will not only encourage transparency, efficiency and ease of delivering the government benefits to the person with disabilities, but also ensure uniformity.

The project will also help in streamlining the tracking of physical and financial progress of beneficiary at all levels of hierarchy of implementation - from village, block, district, state and national level.