Saran district magistrate Vinay Kumar has entrusted a doctor at the Chhapra sadar hospital with the task to head the near-defunct Handicapped Welfare and Rehabilitation Centre in the town.

The centre was established by the ministry of social welfare and empowerment in 2002 to help rehabilitation of differently abled persons. A decade on, the centre, which was set up following efforts of former central minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, is in an urgent need of revival.

After receiving financial assistance from the Union ministry between 2002 and 2009, funds stopped flowing to the unit because no proposal was submitted to the Centre. The funds were utilised to buy equipment such as walkers, artificial limbs, wheel chairs, glasses and crutches for the benefit of beneficiaries, sources said.

However, with the funds drying up in the recent past, the facility, around 75km west of Patna, has become almost dysfunctional.

Kumar, the district magistrate, had written to Red Cross Society and State Health Society, Bihar, to shoulder the responsibility to run the centre. The State Health Society, Bihar, provides Rs 15 lakh a year with the help of which more equipment were purchased and distributed to the differently abled persons. Distribution has, however, stopped from last December.

Dr M.P. Singh, a government doctor posted at Chhapra sadar hospital, has been directed by the DM to take care of the centre around a few days back, the sources added. Dr Singh said: “I am looking into the needs of the centre. It would start functioning and in a month or two.”

The fate of the centre had remained chequered from the start. Its office was changed thrice — from the Red Cross building to Dhai Aakhar Bhavan near the government bus depot in Chhapra now, finally to a room at the Chhapra sadar hospital.

Dr Singh said: “I have requested civil surgeon Dr Vinay Yadav to allot half of the building of the old surgical ward at the sadar hospital so that instruments at the rehabilitation centre could be shifted there and the centre can be made functional.”

Braj Kishore Prasad Singh, a multipurpose rehabilitation worker at the rehabilitation centre, said that apparatus and equipments are stored in a hall near the HIV counsellor’s office at the sadar hospital.

He said: “The differently abled persons are provided with wheelchairs, crutches and tricycles from the centre. Equipments have also been sent to 20 block offices in the district. Each year around 250 to 300 beneficiaries are provided with the required equipment.”

Dr Singh said to benefit the maximum number of persons in every block of the district, officials concerned have been asked to survey and compile a list of differently abled persons. Once that is done, a list of such persons would be sent to the district magistrate along with the requirements to help them, he added.