President Arif Alvi for speedy processing of disability certificates

Islamabad:President Dr. Arif Alvi on Thursday stressed the need for establishing a one-window operation in the country to expeditiously process disability certificates.

He said the existing procedure of certification and registration was quite slow and cumbersome which needed to be simplified for the facilitation of the differently-abled people. The President stated this while chairing a follow-up meeting on the registration of differently-abled persons, here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.

The meeting was attended by the Special Assistant to PM on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr. Sania Nishtar, SAPM on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination (NHSR&C), Dr. Faisal Sultan, Chairman NADRA, Usman Yousaf Mobin, and senior officials of the Ministry of Health. The President said that persons with disability constituted almost 12-14 percent of the country’s population and faced great difficulties in getting their disability certificates.

In order to facilitate them, he asked the concerned stakeholders to establish an institutional setup to be comprised of medical specialists and representatives of NADRA in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) to swiftly process disability certificates.

He advised the Ministry of NHSR&C to approach the provinces comprehensively to evolve a consensus on the definition of disability as well as decide modalities for the certification of disabilities.

Dr. Sania Nishtar briefed the meeting that the survey on the disabled under the Ehsaas Programme would be completed by the end of June 2021. The Chairman NADRA informed the meeting that over 339,000 differently-abled persons had been registered with NADRA. — APP