The State Council has released an outline on improving the lives of the disabled and building a society suitable for the group, in the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

According to the plan, the country is aimed at perfecting the system to protect the rights of the disabled, increase product supply, increase their incomes, and help them live a better life.

To achieve these goals, the government intends to make sure the disabled enjoy the same livelihood guarantees and public services as ordinary people. The plan also urges authorities to utilize the functions of social forces, organizations for the disabled and market mechanisms to meet the multi-layer and various needs of the disabled, while also creating a convenient and friendly living environment for them.

Qualified families of the disabled should enjoy minimum living allowances, preferential policies and subsidies for their use of water, electricity, gas and heat power, and measures should also be taken to support blind and deaf people consume information.

All regions should give convenience and privileges to the disabled when they use public transport or visit parks and scenic spots, while public cultural and sports utilities must be open to the disabled for free or with preferential prices, according to the plan.

Disabled persons in urban and rural areas should enjoy basic pension and medical insurance, as their participation rate in pension is expected to reach around 90 percent by 2020, and in medical insurance the rate will be about 95 percent.

Building a caring service system for the disabled should be based on family nursing, rely on the community and utilize support from foster institutions, which the plan says should also improve their service levels for the disabled.

The plan urges authorities to provide caring services for disabled seniors and provide more policy support for the families adopting disabled children.

To create a better life for the disabled, the plan calls for more disabled people to be employed and an increase in their families’ income.

Government institutions, organs, corporate units and State-owned enterprises will play a leading role in recruiting disabled people, according to the plan. Individual businesses should be encouraged to provide jobs for the disabled through policy support. Authorities should also help arrange business places and provide startup funds for disabled entrepreneurs.

By 2020, all registered disabled people from poor families in rural areas must be out of poverty, the plan says.

To improve their education, the plan calls for disabled students and teenagers from poor families to be exempt from compulsory and high school tuition fees. It also wants recovery institutions to apply for kindergarten permissions and common kindergartens to enroll disabled children.

The plan has regulated that the proportion of disabled children receiving compulsory education must reach 95 percent by 2020.

To provide disabled people with access to the internet, the plan calls for building a website to service the disabled, while also exploring a new model to provide assistance for the disabled in using the internet.

The plan also urges authorities to build a basic public service network for the disabled to connect counties, townships and villages, set up public service platforms such as recovery equipment, foster services, vocational training, suited assistive devices at county level, and regulates that the coverage rate of basic recovery services must reach 80 percent by 2020.