1.25 cr disability cards issued since 2016 Centre

New Delhi, Aug 12 (PTI) The Centre has issued more than 1.25 crore Unique Disability Identity (UDID) cards since its launch in 2016, Lok Sabha has been told.
     In a written response, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment B L Verma said that the UDID project, aimed at creating a national database of persons with disabilities, has received over 1.62 crore applications so far.
     Of these, 22.3 lakh were rejected for various reasons, and nearly 15 lakh applications are waiting for assessment.
     The portal enables state-notified medical authorities to assess disabilities and issue the cards online.
     The average processing time for a UDID card has improved from 84 days in 2022-23 to just 21 days in the current financial year, he said.
     Educational qualification data, however, is no longer being collected in applications since October 2024, leading to more than 13.4 lakh cards being issued without such details.
     The data show that over 1.03 crore cardholders are literate, and around 9.1 lakh are illiterate.
     Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of literate cardholders at over 12.2 lakh, followed by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)