Coimbatore : National Federation of the Blind (NFB) on Wednesday urged Tamil Nadu government to take steps to fill vacancies reserved for disabled persons, particularly visually challenged.

There should be approximately 2,000 backlog under reservation in different departments in Tamil Nadu for visually challenged in Tamil Nadu, the Federation General Secretary, Santosh Kumar Rungta told reporters here.

Stating that four per cent of the Government jobs were reserved for disabled and one per cent jobs from it were for visually challenged, Rungta said that the State government should take steps to fill the backlog within a time-frame.

There was a Supreme Court directive to the Centre and State Governments to fill backlog under reservation for disabled way back in 2013, most of which which remained vacant, he said.

Rungta also demanded that old age pension for disabled should be increased to Rs.3,000 from the present Rs.1,000.

Tamil Nadu, which has no printing press for Braille books, should take steps to have its own press to provide books to the visually challenged at the beginning of the academic year itself, considering the change of courses every year, Rungta said.