Date:06/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/06/stories/2008120658810100.htm

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Stalin’s gesture to disabled girl

S. Sundar

ON CLOUD NINE: Local Administration Minister M.K. Stalin handing over the appointment order to M. Nageswari near Virudhunagar on Friday.

VIRUDHUNAGAR: “I deem it as my life-time achievement” was the reaction of Local Administration Minister, M.K. Stalin, after handing over an appointment order to a physically challenged girl, M. Nageswari (25), on Friday.

Mr. Stalin said that though he had travelled across the State and distributed assistance to many, helping this girl get the job of an office assistant was indeed an achievement. “I cannot forget it all through my life,” he said.

The Minister drove to the girl’s house at Chatrareddiyapatti to hand over the appointment order.

Daughter of a retired junior assistant with the State Government, the girl had handed over a petition during one of his visits here in September this year.

“He (Mr. Stalin) was pained at seeing the girl crawling her way to the dais. Immediately, he asked the officials to rush towards her and help her to move to the dais,” recalled the School Education Minister, Thangam Thennarasu. Mr. Stalin was very particular that she got a job at any cost, Mr. Thennarasu said.

Within a few days, the district administration gave her a temporary job. But Mr. Stalin would not stop at that. “He took up her case with the Chief Minister and requested him to treat it as a special one and got her a job on time-scale. He wanted to hand it over at her residence,” Mr. Thennarasu said.

The girl is now appointed as an office assistant at the Government Higher Secondary School at Chatrareddiyapatti. The girl, who passed her 10th standard from the school, would be drawing her first salary of over Rs. 6,000 from her alma mater.