Panel to monitor vacancies of persons with disabilities

An inter-ministerial panel has been formed to monitor the progress being made by various central government departments in filling vacancies of persons with disabilities.
The move comes following a direction from the Supreme Court last month. The apex court in its interim order dated April 28, in the matter of National Federation of Blind, had directed that immediate steps be taken by the government to expedite the process of filing up of vacancies already identified for persons with disabilities.
The inter-ministerial committee will be headed by Additional Secretary in Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and will have representatives from ministries of defence, financial services, public enterprises and also from Office of Chief Commissioner of persons with disabilities, among others.

The Committee shall meet atleast once in a month. The committee would monitor the progress in filling up of vacancies of persons with disabilities reported to the Supreme Court, to ensure that appropriate action is taken for filling up such vacancies in the scheduled time frame, an order issued by DoPT said.
The secretarial services to the Committee would be provided by the DoPT, it said.
Meanwhile, a special drive to fill vacant posts for persons with disabilities has already been initiated by the Centre.

The DoPT has set the outer time frame for filling up of vacancies where recruitment action has already been started and asked all ministries to finalise the appointments by December 31, this year.

Whereas, in case of vacancies where recruitment action is yet to be initiated, the last date for issue of appointment to selected candidates has been kept February 1, 2016.
The DoPT has recently asked all government departments to try to retain the services of any employee seeking voluntary retirement on medical grounds or citing disability.