KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — The government will continue attending to the welfare of persons with disabilities (PwDs) by allocating RM1.2 billion for this group through Budget 2023.

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said this allocation would provide aid for care of the PwDs with chronic diseases and allowance for PwDs who were unable to work and for the disabled workers.

"The government will also be implementing initiatives to hone the potential and skills of the PwDs towards looking after their own economy,” he said when tabling the Supply Bill 2023 in the Dewan Rakyat, here, today.

"In encouraging more of the PwDs to go into business, the government will continue to boost the 1 PwD 1 Business Scheme through exemption of the business registration and licence renewal fees under the Companies Commission of Malaysia.

"Besides this, the government has allocated RM10 million to provide travel vouchers for PwDs through the e-hailing service so as to ease mobility for this group.

"In protecting the welfare of special education children and their teachers, RM20 million is allocated to provide the teaching devices and improving facilities at the schools for special needs students,” he said, adding that the education of these children would continue to be enhanced.

Tengku Zafrul said the government also provided a special incentive for the establishment of 50 new kindergartens for children with disabilities compared to the existing 13 to enable parents to send their special needs children to safe schools.

"The Finance Ministry will also initiate the setting up of a friendly call centre for PwDs by using the video call mode together with the services of sign language interpreters to convey messages to these children,” he said.

He also noted that there were now 260,000 PwDs eligible for the Bantuan Keluarga Malaysia (BKM) or the Malaysian Family Aid. — Bernama