KP govt didn't pay a single penny to special persons for years

The austerity-driven PTI government isn’t ready to spare even the special persons as not a single penny has been paid to them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last five years, Azmat Ali Shah reported for 24NewsHD TV channel from Peshawar on Saturday.

And the reason behind this apathy to these people, who need special care by not only the state but also by the society, has been the delay in receiving funds or not getting any allocation for the purpose during this period.

In this connection, the Social Welfare Department says there are over 145,000 special persons in the province, who have been divided into four categories on the basis of their respective disability: physical, mental, blind and deaf.

The number of persons falling under the physical disability is 82,689 followed by mental 22,410, blind 20,177 and deaf 20,129.

A district-wise look at the distribution of these cases shows Swat tops the list with 17,492 special persons. Lower Dir and Peshawar districts are second and third on the list with 12,526 and 11,503 respectively.

But the lack of reliable data has always been a problem in our country and the special persons of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are not an exception.

That’s why Social Welfare Minister Hasham Inamullah said they did not have any data of the merged tribal districts as the department had no setup in the region.

He expressed the fear that the actual number of special persons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may be several times higher than the officially reported figures.