The Tamil Nadu government on March 22 verbally agreed to a decade-long demand to increase the monthly social security pension for persons with disabilities. Currently, the state government give a Rs 1,000 per month allowance to persons with disabilities. This is simply not enough, say members from the community who joined the protests spread out across Chennai on Tuesday.
On the morning of March 22, hundreds of persons with disabilities and their caregivers poured into Chennai from various districts such as Mayiladuthurai, Tiruchy, Cuddalore, and Madurai. Multiple protests were held in the city, at the Egmore Railway Station, in KK Nagar, near the Koyambedu bus terminus and opposite the MA Chidambaram Cricket Stadium in Chepauk. The protests were organised by the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently Abled and Caregivers.
Shaktimurugan, a 23-year-old man whose right foot is immobile after a polio attack in his childhood, came all the way from Cuddalore to take part in the protest. “I get Rs 1,000 per month and need to survive on that. Because of my leg, I don’t get any job,” he says. Despite his disability, Shakti says that the Chennai Police detained him near the Koyambedu bus terminus where he had been sitting in protest along with his friends from Cuddalore.
“We were not allowed to come to Chepauk as the police had made us sit in one place. This is illegal detention,” he tells TNM.
Shanthi, who had taken a train to Chennai from Madurai with her son who has visual impairments, tells TNM that the Madurai city police had prevented other persons with disabilities and their caregivers from boarding the train to Chennai. “I managed to evade attention and boarded the train. But despite paying money and buying valid tickets, the police withheld permission for many people to travel,” she says.
S Namburajan, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC) says that the police had placed barbed wire barricades to prevent protests; they illegally detained many of the protesters in wedding halls, and disregarded the right to mobility of persons with disabilities, by not allowing them to take trains or buses to Chennai to protest. These are serious violations, he tells TNM.
The TARATDAC’s demand is for the social security pension offered to all persons with disabilities in 21 categories by the TN Social Welfare Department to be raised to Rs 3,000 from the present Rs 1,000.
For persons with severe disabilities including spinal and muscular atrophy and intellectual disabilities, another allowance termed Grant in Aid is given by the welfare department; the TARATDAC has demanded that the grant be increased to Rs 5,000.
“States such as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are giving over Rs 3,000 to all persons with 40% disabilities. The scheme benefits over 11.6 lakh persons including caregivers in both the states taken together. In Tamil Nadu, however, these allowances do now benefit over three lakh persons and the entire process is too complicated, and the money far too less,” Namburajan tells TNM.
Following their hours-long agitation, Social Welfare Minister P Geetha Jeevan met the protesters at the State Commissionerate for the Welfare of the Differently Abled at Karamajar Salai and accepted their demands.
“The minister has agreed to meet our demands and raise the allowance in a phased manner. Hence, we have decided to end our protest for now,” Namburajan tells TNM.