Patna: The director of the empowerment of persons with disability directorate under the social welfare department, Raj Kumar, has instructed all civil surgeons and assistant directors of district social security cells to make unique disability identity (UDID) cards for people with all 21 types of disabilities.

The notification, dated July 31, says that the UDID cards can be issued to differently abled people by officials concerned by logging on the UDID website, www.swavlambanacard.gov.in. Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act covers 21 types of disabilities and UDID cards have to be issued for people suffering from such disabilities.

"While people can get their UDID card generated online by logging on to the UDID website and feeding details regarding their disability certificate, they can also avail of the UDID number by applying to the civil surgeon and district social security cell office as the authorities concerned are supposed to do the needful in case they receive any offline application for the same," said state disabilities commissioner Shivajee Kumar.

He said UDID cards will be a boon for differently abled people, as they can avail of the benefits of government schemes easily with those.

"If a differently abled person wants concession on train ticket, he will apply online and mention the UDID number in the application to avail that.

Similarly, the person can avail benefits of other government schemes with their UDID number. It will act just like Aadhaar number for differently abled people.

Shivajee said on Monday, he had issued summons to the Gaya civil surgeon for not following his instruction of start issuing UDID cards to differently abled people, which he issued in the mobile court conducted in Gaya on July 25.

"The civil surgeon has to appear in my court, which is to be held in the Patna office on August 7. The issuance of UDID cards by the authorities concerned is a must. Appropriate action will be taken if it is found that there is irregularity in this work," added Shivajee.

The UDID website, http://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/ says the unique ID for persons with disabilities project is being implemented with a view to create a national database for persons with disabilities and to issue a UDID card to each person with disability.

The project will not only encourage transparency, efficiency and ease of delivering the government benefits to the person with disabilities, but also ensure uniformity.

The project will also help in streamlining the tracking of physical and financial progress of beneficiary at all levels of hierarchy of implementation - from the village level, block level, district level, state level and national level.