Only 10 Per Cent Persons With Disabilities Registered

Friday, July 25, 2008

Bernama - General

July 22, 2008 19:52 PM

Only 10 Per Cent Persons With Disabilities Registered

KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 Julai (Bernama) -- Assistance to the estimated 1.6 million to 2.7 million disabled population in the country is hampered by the fact that only 10 per cent of them have registered themselves.

Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen said only those registered would be eligible for various government aid.

"Because only a small number of them (disabled) are registered, this has hampered our efforts to extend assistance to them," she said when opening a seminar on the Persons with Disabilities Act here Monday.

She said the ministry was expecting the number of disabled persons to grow in tandem with the increase in population and life expectancy as well as the rise in road and industrial accidents

As of last year, only 220,250 disabled people were registered with the Social Welfare Department.

Special schemes provided by the ministry for registered disabled people included a monthly allowance of RM300 for parents or caretakers in charge of those who were bedridden, from January 2008, she said.

Children with disabilities who enrolled in the community-based rehabilitation programmes would be given a special allowance of RM150 monthly starting February this year, she said.

Financial incentives of RM300 monthly would also be given to working disabled people less than RM1,200 a month.In 2007, a total of 16,542 disabled people benefited from this scheme with a total of RM32.9 million disbursed, she added.

Dr Ng said other ministries were also offering various aid for the disabled.

For example, she said, the Human Resources Ministry had allocated RM22 million in financial aid under the Business Incentive Aid Scheme for the Disabled.

BERNAMA