CRC brings only disappointment for disabled persons in Kashmir

CRC brings only disappointment for disabled persons in Kashmir
By staff writer
Kashmir Times
December 2, 2011 ET
When Compos­ite Regional Centre (CRC) was set up in Kashmir in 2000; it had brought a ray of hope for tens of thou­sands of disabled people across the Valley.

But 11 years since then, the CRC has brought noth­ing but disap­point­ment to the disabled popu­lation of Kashmir.

The disabled people here see the Centre as defunct body, which fails to fulfill its mandate. They complain that the Centre has failed to empower the disabled people in the Valley. "There
are only six Compos­ite Regional Centers in the country and we were lucky to have one of them. But due to its mis­man­age­ment, it has been rendered use­less," said Javed Tak, Chairman Human­ity Welfare Orga­ni­zation, a Help­line NGO.

Compos­ite Regional Center is meant for the rehabili­tation and human resource devel­op­ment of disabled people. It is funded by the central govern­ment. Kashmir has one such centre, with two branches at dis­trict lev­el.

The CRC, which was supposed to be tak­en over by the govern­ment and equipped with perma­nent di­rectorate and staff, has failed to get the at­tention of the au­thor­ities. "But so far it has not been tak­en
over by the govern­ment. There are no perma­nent di­rectors. Till now it has had eleven di­rectors but none of them perma­nent. An accountant serves as an admin­istrator at CRC," said Javed. "The CRC is supposed to conduct research, identi­fy disabilities and pro­vide required fa­cilities and rehabili­tation for them which they haven't done so far," said Mohammad Ismail, a phys­ically disabled per­son.

He said that in the absence of CRC branches at dis­trict lev­els, major­ity of the popu­lation is un­able to get any ben­efits. "The number of people go­ing to CRC is very less while we have lakhs of disabled persons. Those living in oth­er dis­tricts won't trav­el ev­ery day to Srinagar," said Ismail. He said that