Kathmandu, June 7: His Majesty’s Government has formed a national coordination committee on disability under the chairmanship of the Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare to coordinate programmes and activities carried out for the well-being of the disabled, provide necessary policy directives and preserve the rights of the disabled.

The committee with the Minister of State or Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare as vice-chairman has the secretaries at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Finance, the member-secretaries at National Planning Commission Secretariat and Social Welfare Council, and president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry as members.

The chairman will nominate up to 12 representatives (25 percent disabled women) from national federation of the disabled and various organisations working in the field of different kinds of disability and rehabilitation, two representatives from among social workers and two representatives from among the specialists concerned. The tenure of nominated members will be four years.

The joint secretary at the social welfare division under the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare is member-secretary of the committee.

According to the Ministry, 16 representatives have been nominated to the committee for four years.

They include president of Nepal Association of the Blind Nara Bahadur Limbu, Kamala Dahal of Nepal Disabled Women’s Association, Dilli Bazaar, Kathmandu, president of the Association for the Welfare of Mentally retarded Dr. Mahendra Prasad, Subarna Keshari Chitrakar of Association of the Guardians of Mentally Retarded, Putali Sadak, Kathmandu, Treasurer of Kathmandu Association of the Deaf Dipawali Sharma, Ang Kaji Sherpa of Nepal National Federation of the Guardians of the Deaf, President of National Federation of the Disabled Munishwor Pandey and President of Disabled Support Fund Taranath Koirala.

Other nominated members are president of Friends of Disabled, Banepa Dr. Ashok Baskota, Prof. Batuk Rajbhandari of self-help group cerebralpalsy, Kathmandu, Impact Nepal President Dr. Laxmi Narayan Prasad, president of Nepal Association of the Disabled Surendra Bahadur Basnet, national president of the Reiyukai Nepal Roshan Krishna Nyachhyo, UCEP Nepal President Govinda Adhikari, Director of HRDC, Banepa Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Surya Bhakta Prajapati of CBR, Bhaktapur.