PESHAWAR: The number of differently-abled people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has exceeded 150,000 but unfortunately, they are deprived of basic legal and constitutional rights in the province.
In response to the growing number of persons with disabilities, the provincial government had directed the department of Social Welfare to provide them special facilities in residential areas, schools, hospitals and government offices in multi-storied buildings.
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The data of the social welfare department shows that Swat district is leading with people with disabilities followed by Lower Dir and Battagram districts, but no district have special facilities of such people despite the tall claims of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government. There have been no special tracks constructed in the mountain regions such as Swat, Dir, Battagram and Chitral for the movement of people with disabilities. Daily Mashriq has reported that there is no enough schools for people deprived of eyesight. The physically disabled people are also facing problems in attending schools due to lack of facilities.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa social welfare department has informed that out of the 150,000 persons with disabilities, 54,625 are men, 29,400 women, more than 27,000 are children while 15,000 are mentally handicapped. A total of 66,000 persons with disabilities have been diagnosed with various physical problems.
The social welfare department said that 16,000 differently-abled persons have been registered in Swat, 10,483 in Lower Dir and 9,672 in Battagram. The officials believe that there still thousands of persons who are yet to be registered with the department.
The department has said that the terrorism has added to the number of differently-abled people in KP. In 2018, the department had registered 139,000 differently-abled people. The government had started the process of providing them ‘disability certificates’ making them able to avail special quotas in government jobs and other facilities.