In news– As part of the celebrations of 75 years of Independence, the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry has asked states to speed up implementation of the UDID scheme for persons with disabilities (PwD) in the 75 districts across India, which have been selected for their connection with the freedom struggle.
Key updates-
- Rural Development Ministry had selected the UDID programme as a part of its 90-day campaign ending on July 27 in districts “selected on the basis of unsung heroes of India’s freedom struggle” under Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
- The campaign aimed for 100% coverage of 17 Central schemes in the 75 districts.
- Among the selected districts are Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, native place of Mangal Pandey; Purba Midnapore in West Bengal, the home district of Matangini Hazra; and Alirajpur in Madhya Pradesh, where Chandra Shekhar Azad was from.
About UDID scheme-
- Launched in 2016, this project is being implemented with a view of creating a National Database for PwDs, and to issue a Unique Disability Identity Card to each person with disabilities.
- The Objective of this project is to enable the PwDs to obtain the new UDID card / Disability Certificate to avail schemes and benefits.
- Targets were to clear all pending applications, digitise data of PwD who had been issued manual certificate and generate UDID cards for them and register those PwD with 40% disabilities who had not been enrolled onto the UDID portal yet.
- 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 Department of Empowerment of PwD (DEPwD) under the Ministry made it mandatory for states to issue disability certificates through the UDID portal from June 1, 2021, as opposed to the offline mode.
Benefits of UDID cards-
The UDID card shall bring a host of benefits to the Persons with Disabilities as given below:
- Persons with disabilities 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 UDID card will be the single document of identification, verification of the disabled for availing various benefits in future
- The UDID Card will also help in stream-lining the tracking of the physical and financial progress of beneficiary at all levels of hierarchy of implementation – from village level, block level, District level , State level and National level
