Free travel for disabled players in Haryana buses

Chandigarh, Feb 21 (UNI) Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today announced that disabled players would be provided of free travel in Haryana Roadways buses.

The Chief Minister was speaking during the inauguration function of four-day 10th Senior and 5th Junior Paralympics National Athletics Championship at Faridabad.

He said the State Government will spent a sum of Rs 53 crore during the current financial year for the welfare of physically challenged persons and place would be made available in the Faridabad Sports Stadium for setting up the office of Haryana Paralympics Committee.

He said the Haryana Government had implemented a new Sports Policy under which several incentives were given to the players.

Sports stadia were being constructed in as many as 154 villages, each of which would cost over Rs. 50 lakh. He said the monthly pension of the disabled had been doubled from Rs 300 to Rs 600. The retirement age of physically challenged government employees had been raised from 58 to 60. Special attention was being given to recruit disabled persons in government jobs. As many as 414 disabled persons had been recruited in government jobs so far. He assured that attention would be paid to reserve seats for disabled players in government appointments.

The President of the Haryana Paralympics Committee and the Union Minister of State for Defence, Rao Inderjit Singh said that disabled players would also be given facilities similar to other players to bring them into the mainstream and enable them to lead a life full of confidence.

Players from 13 states were participating in this championship including Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

In all, 786 players were taking part in the championship, out of which 646 were males and 140 females.

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