The centre will come up under the department of disabilities, which is in the process of being formulated.

The Delhi government plans to set up training and rehabilitation centres to ready its own cadre of special educators for persons with disabilities.

At present, educators and caregivers are hired largely from non-government organisations (NGO).

Also, there is a shortage of educators for people with multiple disabilities.

Initially, one such composite centre — for training educators as well as rehabilitating those with disabilities by providing them employable skills — will be established on a pilot basis in the capital on lines of those in Chennai, Dehradun and Secunderabad after which, if the model is successful, three such centres will be replicated, said officials in the social welfare department.

The centre will come up under the department of disabilities, which is in the process of being formulated.

The government had, in November last year, set up a committee to look into all aspects of formation of a dedicated department to address problems faced by people with disabilities (PwD). The committee had to give a report on the modalities of the new department and its recommendations for the same.

“The committee’s major recommendations have already come and we are expecting its report to come in the next two weeks. It has recommended setting up autonomous training and rehab centres and making officials visit the centres in Chennai and other places to better understand the functioning of such centres. There is a pressing need for teachers in this sector to handle various kinds of disabilities, which is lacking at present,” said a senior official.

Most of the sanctioned posts for teachers in the seven government-run schools for disabled have been lying vacant for years. In at least three such schools 60% posts for teachers are lying vacant while in two primary schools for hearing-impaired not even a single post has been filled in 2018-19, the outcome budget report 2019-20 released by the government on Friday said, adding, that appointment of guest teachers is in process.

“The centre is meant to focus on optimising skills of people with disabilities for enhancing employability. We need micro-level intervention for improving the existing services. For instance, there are only a few trained people available to assist people with severe mental and multiple disabilities,” said Rashmi Krishnan, secretary, social welfare, Delhi government, and head of the committee.

The committee has also recommended changes in the role of field officers and making use of existing facilities, some of which lie under-utilised.

According to experts, this will be an important move, as there are no such autonomous institutions in the city, which has a fairly large number of PwD. Also, there are very few trained educators for people with multiple disabilities such as deaf blindness, a combination of sight and hearing impairment.

“For disabilities such as deafblindness, one needs to communicate through tactile sign language. There are many such people in the city including children who develop it from early years, who too need to be brought into the mainstream for which good educators are required. At present not just in Delhi, there is a shortage of such teachers across the country,” said Dr Satendra Singh, disability rights activist and associate professor, University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS).