Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot said universal identification cards with nation-wide validity will be issued to the differently-abled across the country.<br/><br/>Speaking at a programme in Kurnool, the Minister said the Union government would issue orders shortly to increase the seven categories of differently-abled to 19 categories to ensure coverage of a larger number of beneficiaries under various schemes. <br/><br/>He said the Centre signed a Memorandum of Understanding with OttoBock of Germany for manufacture of artificial electronic limbs for differently-abled and the limbs would be distributed after six months. Mr. Gehlot said skill development training would be imparted to 2.5 lakh differently-abled persons in the next seven years. <br/><br/>He said a National Sports School for differently-abled at Visakhapatnam was sanctioned with an outlay of 10 crore rupees and a Mental Health and Rehabilitation Centre at Nellore with an outlay of 6 crore rupees.