How children with disabilities are made to jump through hoops to access benefits
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Sangeeta Prajapati applied for a Unique Disability Identity number for her 14-year-old daughter, Om Kumari, in April 2025. Since then, she has spent at least five nights at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in South Delhi, seeking appointments with specialist doctors to assess Kumari, who has autism.
The assessments are the most important steps in the generation of the UDID number. In Kumari’s case, doctors need to evaluate her reasoning, learning and problem-solving capabilities, as well as her adaptive behaviour, which covers a range of social skills, and skills required for activities of daily living. Additionally, Kumari will also need to be screened for associated comorbidities pertaining to hearing, visual or locomotor impairments.
Hospitals carry out the assessments for persons with autism, intellectual disability and cerebral palsy over a series of sessions. They issue an appointment for each session separately. “I get a message from the hospital to collect the token for a doctor to see Om,” said Prajapati. So far, she has received the message five times, asking her to be present the following day. Each time, she has left her home in southeast Delhi’s Harkesh Nagar with her daughter, travelled 10 km to reach AIIMS, and stayed at the facility...