The District Women and Children Office in Parbat recently distributed social benefit identity cards to the disabled and elderly persons at remote Ranipani VDC.

More than 100 physically challenged and senior citizens received social benefit ID cards in a door-to-door programme that was organised at Ranipani at the request of Nepal Apanga Utthan Samaj and Ranipani Apanga Sanjal.

Taradevi Sunuwar, acting women development officer in the district, said the programme saved the trouble of travelling to the district headquarters to prepare social benefit ID cards for the disabled and the old people in the village.  It takes nearly 6 hours to reach Ranipani from Kusma, the district headquarters, through a dirt track. 

Laxmidevi Shrestha, who lives with her disabled husband, Tek Bahadur, had been unable to take her husband to Kusma to prepare his social benefit ID card because of the travel and lodging costs, which the couple could not afford.

Laxmidevi said both she and her husband were pleased beyond measure when the people from the DWCO arrived in the village to distribute social benefit ID cards. 

According to the DWCO, 86 senior citizens and 27 physically challenged persons from Ranipani and Barahachaur benefited from the programme. They are now eligible for receiving monthly allowance from the state.