GUWAHATI, Nov 25 - The Assam Deaf Association today announced a series of agitational programmes to press for fulfilment of a 20-point demand charter.
The Association said in a press release that its members would resort to a four-hour sit-in demonstration on November 27 covering their faces with black clothes. They will boycott the official function on December 3 on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and resort to a five-hour symbolic strike at the office of the Director of Social Welfare.
The agitational programme of the Association members will culminate with a 100-hour fast beginning on December 7. Ten members of the Association will take part in the fast to be launched during the ensuing Winter Session of the State Assembly, said the press release.
The demands include absorption of the deaf candidates selected by the State government in 2005 in State government jobs; filling up of the third and fourth category posts reserved for the disabled people in accordance with the 1981 backlog roster; government grant to construct the building of the North East India Deaf College; free travelling facility for the disabled people in government-run buses; promotion of the deaf employees who are engaged in government services for the past ten years at a stretch; setting up of a disabled department in the State Secretariat; allotment of 100 bighas of land in close proximity to Guwahati to settle the unemployed deaf people, among others.
