Indore: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who completed 10 years in office today, spent time with Geeta, the deaf-mute girl who returned to India from Pakistan last month.
She has been residing at a city-based institute after returning to the country.
After meeting Geeta and other special children with disabilities, the Chief Minister announced a slew of measures to uplift the hearing and speech-impaired persons.
Chouhan, who broke the record held of Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, and his wife Sadhana interacted with Geeta and other special children with the help of sign language experts for over 30 minutes.
“Geeta has returned home after great difficulties. Now search for her parents is on. She should treat my wife and me as maternal aunt and uncle,” the CM said.
“The (Madhya Pradesh) state government will take care of Geeta and special children like her,” he assured.
“The first decision of mine on entering the 11th year in office is in favour of speech and hearing-impaired students. Such students who score at least 50 per cent marks in class XII and want to do Diploma in Education (DEd) and Bachelor in Education (BEd) will be given free of cost education to these courses,” he said.
“I want these special students to become teachers,” he said, adding 1,000 such posts will be filled so that mute and deaf students get proper education.
The state government will foot the bill of the expenditure to be borne by speech and hearing-impaired students who want to do IIT, IIM and medical courses after cracking entrance tests, he added.
Geeta was reportedly only 7-8 years old when she was found sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express at Lahore Station by the Pakistani Rangers 15 years ago.
She was adopted by Edhi Foundation and returned to India on October 26.