Calcutta High Court has called the state government’s plan to make persons with rare diseases apply for a disability certificate through a state portal, despite there being a central portal for that, as “tantamount to harassing those individuals”.
The court criticised the state during a hearing earlier this week for not being able to run its portal without glitches.
The division bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam was hearing petitions filed by a federation of associations of parents of children who have rare diseases and disabilities.
The court also questioned the need for the state to have a separate portal to register persons with disabilities when there is already a country-wide portal to do so.
The petitioners submitted that many of those with disabilities had already applied for a UDID card (a card with a unique ID for persons with disabilities) and disability in the central portal.
But when they tried to apply through the state portal after its launch, they were told that they could not register because their Aadhar
numbers had already been registered (with the central portal).
The court’s order said: “It is not clear as to why the State of West Bengal has devised a separate portal and even assuming such a separate portal was devised, technology provides for migrating data which is already available in the Central portal. Therefore, we are of the opinion that compelling the persons suffering from rare disease to apply to the State portal would tantamount to harassing those individuals.”
The state health department had in an email to the principals of the medical colleges said the portal would go live on August 7.
The email — Metro has gone through it — said the portal was launched to issue disability certificates as well as UDID cards.
An official in the state health department said the department required data about persons with disabilities and getting such data from the central portal was not always possible.
“We need the data because we offer a lot of social wel-
fare schemes. Also, our portal is working in sync with the central portal,” said the official.
When told that many persons with disabilities were not being able to register in the state portal, the official said: “We have already fetched data of the applicants from the central portal. They need not worry. The UDID cards will be issued to them.”
Chaitali Gami, the mother of a 28-year-old woman who has an intellectual disorder, said she had yet to get the UDID card for her daughter. “I want the UDID card because it will enable her to get the benefits of various social security schemes,” she said.
“The state government had initially declined to take part in the process to issue
the card. When it agreed
earlier this year, the state launched a separate portal and asked residents of Bengal to apply through the portal,” she said.
According to her, many old applicants found their applications had been rejected by the state portal. “When they tried to apply again in the state portal, it said their Aadhaar numbers had already been registered. They could not apply again,” she said.
The court’s order on Monday said “the applicants attempted to register their names in the State portal for the purpose of obtaining cards/certificates, however, access is being denied on the ground that their AADHAR card is registered in the Central Portal”.