M. Sadagopan Ramesh, a Tenth Standard student who had congenital thumb deformity in both hands, approached the school whether he could be given extra time in the public examinations only to find that he had been declared “handicapped in leg” in the disability certificate.
Ramesh, a student of Government High School at Seiyamangalam in Mudukulathur block, had obtained a National Identity Passbook with disability certificate issued by the Special Commissioner for Disabled in 2008, but he wrongly identified himself with disability in leg.
A medical board, comprising three doctors, had examined him and issued the certificate and the Differently Abled Welfare Department declared him 50 per cent handicapped. As the certificate could not fetch him any financial assistance extended to differently abled persons, his parents, who were farm workers, dumped the card at home.
All these years, Sadagopan Ramesh, named after a Tamil Nadu cricketer, had been competing with normal boys and scored good marks. When his school headmaster suggested that he could get extra time in the final examination citing his deformity, he took out the disability certificate only to find that he was declared ‘lame.’
Since last week, he had been running from pillar to post to get it corrected, with an appeal to the Department of Education. When the boy, accompanied by his grandfather, visited the Government Headquarters Hospital on December 7, the staff assumed that he came for treatment and directed him to visit the doctor at the ward.
As he could not meet any doctor, he visited the hospital again on Monday only to be told that he should have come before 8.30 a.m. and asked to come again next Monday. As he stood helpless, someone suggested that he could visit the Differently Abled Welfare Department and the boy visited the Collectorate here to explain his plight.
