He was speaking at the sixth anniversary of NFB held at the School for Blind here on Wednesday.

Rungta said one round of discussion has already been held with the chief secretary and he has agreed to consider the issue.

Also, he has assured that a meeting of all departments would be convened to sort out the issue.

He has said that another round of meeting would be held within eight to 10 days with representatives of NFB and discuss the stand of the state government. Rungta said the issue would be sorted out within the next month.

Observing that 3 per cent of jobs have to be set aside for specially-abled in both central and state governments, Rungta demanded that it should be increased to 5 per cent. He said the state and central governments should again work on identifying posts for the visually-impaired.

Recalling the fight of NFB to ensure that visually-impaired could join the Indian Civil Services, Rungta said the Supreme Court had directed the central government way back in 1993 to include visually-impaired. But, it took 17 years to get visually-impaired into the civil services. Now, 12 visually-impaired persons are serving in the Indian Civil Services, he added.

He said legislation by itself is not enough to avail services, instead specially-abled should use the rules to avail the services.

Commissioner for persons with disabilities K V Rajanna said the state government has been urged to provide hostels run by social welfare department of the visually-impaired. However, the wardens fear that they would have to undertake additional responsibility, due to which providing hostels has been delayed.

Women and child welfare department deputy director N R Vijay, Prajavani chief of bureau Ravindra Bhat, NFB project director P Manohar and others were present.