UDID card- how to apply and its hollow promises!!!

OK, So I was stopped at the airport.

usually, I get frisked a bit more than normal individuals due to my disability. But having the disability certificate generally helps. This one time, the security officer asked me to showcase my UDID card. Now, I knew about the UDID card but I haven’t yet applied for it. I thought it was a bit pointless. I will get to the bit about why I felt so. After thorough physical checking and assessment of my disability certificate, I was allowed to board the flight.

With much thought, just to avoid such an unpleasant scene, I decided to apply for it.

If you are a Person with Disability (PwD), this blog will help you know everything about the UDID card so let’s take it up from the top.

What is this card?

A unique ID card is mandated by the govt for each person with disability in India.

The UDID holds all information of a person in one place and can be considered as a single access point. The card will have distinguishable features to identify the extent of a person’s disability. A person with less than 40% disability would have a card with a white stripe, 40 to 80% would have a card with a yellow stripe and an above 80% card with a blue stripe.

My take

This will surely have an ease of carrying than having a long disability certificate to be carried. The loss of the disability certificate would mean that you need to reapply for it again. however, for a UDID card, you have all your information registered on the govt database. You just need to reissue the card. It’s good to standardize the disability criteria and output across different states. Until now, each state had its disability certificate, in a way this standardizes things across India.

Why this card is required?

As per the government website, the “Unique ID for Persons with Disabilities” project is being implemented with a view of creating a National Database for Persons with Disability (PwDs) and issuing a Unique Disability Identity Card to each person with disabilities. The project will not only encourage transparency, efficiency, and ease of delivering government benefits to the person with disabilities but also ensure uniformity. The project will also help streamline the tracking of the physical and financial progress of beneficiaries at all levels of the hierarchy of implementation from Village level, Block level, District level, State level, and National level.

My Take

well, surely the card is a good idea but what startled me is a line that says “a view of creating a National Database for Persons with Disability (PwDs) ”. Meaning, that till now Govt, didn’t had any database of the disability certificates that were being issued. If someone was issuing the disability certificate for the first time, then it makes sense to evaluate the disability but my certificate, which was issued in 2015, was issued on a computer-based system. It’s appalling that the govt didn’t value previously captured data and had to subject approximately 3 cr PwD Indians through the disability assessment again. If a person is certified as permanently disabled in 2015, it’s of no consequence to reevaluate his/her disability again in 2023. Govt is either making a mockery of the assessment done previously or wasting the medical professionals’ time now.

it would have been so much better if they had integrated with the data from the state level and issued UDID cards based on previous assessments.

How to apply for the card?

Follow the below steps

Go to https://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/pwd/applicationnew
fill in the below-required details
1. Applicant’s Full Name * Applicant Father’s Name * Applicant Mother’s Name * Date of Birth * Caste Category*
2. Relation with Person*- Who is filling this form needs to be declared. In case a PwD person himself or herself is filling then select Self Name of Guardian / Caretaker* Contact No. of Guardian / Caretaker*
3. Proof of Identity Card Adhar card
4. Address for Correspondence
5. Disability Details need to be selected from the fixed menu. Below is a detailed explanation of the terms.
6. Hospital for assessment/issue of UDID card /disability certificate
7. Things to be attached-
  1. Photo
  2. Signature / Thumb / Other Print

TYPES OF DISABILITIES

As per the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights & Full Participation) Act, 1995 – A person with disability can be defined as one with one or more disabilities falling under any of the below-mentioned categories :

Blindness:- “Blindness” refers to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions namely:- Total absence of sight; or Visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 (Snellen) in the better eye with correcting lenses; or Limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse;
Cerebral Palsy:- “Cerebral Palsy” means a group of non-progressive conditions of a person characterized by abnormal motor control posture resulting from brain insult or injuries occurring in the pre-natal, peri-natal, or infant period of development;
Low vision:- ” Low vision” means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment of standard refractive correction but who uses or is capable of using vision for the planning or execution of a task with an appropriate assistive device;
Locomotor disability:- “Locomotor disability” means disability of the bones, joints, or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy;
Leprosy-cured:- “Leprosy-cured person” means a person who has been cured of leprosy but is suffering from- Loss of sensation in hands or feet as well as loss of sensation and paresis in the eye and eye-lid but with no manifest deformity; Manifest deformity and paresis but having sufficient mobility in their hands and feet to enable them to engage in normal economic activity; Extreme physical deformity as well as advanced age which prevents him from undertaking any gainful occupation and the expression “Leprosy Cured” shall be construed accordingly;
Mental retardation:- “Mental retardation” means a condition of arrested or incomplete development of the mind of a person which is especially characterized by sub-normality of intelligence;
Mental illness:- “Mental illness” means any mental disorder other than Mental retardation Hearing Impairment:- “Hearing Impairment” means loss of sixty decibels or more in the better ear in the conversational range of frequencies

What next?

well, once you have submitted the form, you have to visit the selected the Hospital for assessment. Remember to carry

The receipt you’d get post filling out the form
The print of the form
if you have a previous disability certificate, carry the original
Identity proof as well as your address proof- bring the same documents, mentioned in the form for verification.

A medical officer (poor fellow) will review your documents, and your papers, against your disability. He may ask you a few (lame) questions. He would assess your disability certificate and hit a few buttons on his computer to process your submitted form. If this happened in one go and you are leaving with a soft copy of the UDID card, then consider yourself lucky because this is not the usual pace of things.

Medical officers call you one time only to submit the documents and next week, for verification and button wizardry the next time. Honestly, this verification process should be simplified to the core. it pained me to see severely disabled individuals or old people in wheelchairs waiting for their turn in a queue. I urge the govt to add an option for virtual assessment of PwDs rather than calling them physically or asking the medical officer to plan a visit at PwD’s places.

Benefits

https://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/schemes/search

https://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/cms/schemes-for-persons-with-disabilities

These two govt website links give us an insight into the benefits that can be availed by PwDs in India.

My Take

If you go through the above links, it is a sham. If it wasn’t on the official govt website, I would have suspected the whole UDID card was a phishing scheme. None of the links work under the Scheme for Persons with Disabilities menu on the official website. Another link opens the state-level forms. What I don’t understand, is if I have registered for the UDID card on the official govt website, then why do I have to resubmit the form to get the state-level benefit? I should have automatically been eligible for these welfare schemes.

I tried to reach the govt (about none of the welfare schemes links working) via their suggestion link (https://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/suggestion). Oh my bad, I must be daydreaming to imagine they would care to go through my mail and revert with a solution.

In Conclusion

well, while I was waiting in line patiently for my turn, with all the crumpled documents in my hand, at the hospital, one aged individual told me one hard-hitting truth. “Certification of disability and identification of disability changes as per the changes in govt. One party will print a document and another when they come in power, want a card. That is it. Apart from this, nothing else has ever changed for PwD in India and ever will, apart from disability certification assessment dates”

A disappointed wave of hand followed. I could only smile, trying to swallow the bitter truth.

Sharing is Caring!