THE need to provide barrier-free access to persons with disabilities (PWDs) was highlighted at a meeting here on Tuesday. The meeting was called to sensitise the services sectors about the need to provide special facilities for PWDs.
Unnati and Handicap International, two local voluntary organisations, have invited Anjalee Agarwal and Sanjeev Sachdeva of Delhi-based agency ‘‘Samarthya’’—Centre for Promotion of Barrier-Free Environment for Disablied People—to discuss how Gujarat could be made barrier-free for PWDs.
Eventhough the meeting at Ahmedabad Management Association did not attract many people, those present promised to make things better for PWDs in their respective spheres. Agarwal and Sachdeva made a moving presentation showing the difficulties faced by wheelchair-borne PWDs in using corridors, toilets and reaching upper levels on the ground. They said they found not a single hotel in the city which had a disabled-friendly toilet.
Sachdeva said hotel rankings should be linked to disabled-freindly facilities like at least one room where toilet has high commode seat and more space to manoeuvre wheelchair, wide corridors and ramps etc. Sachdeva finds Ahmedabad as the city which has taken initiative in easing access problems of PWDs, for example, musical traffic signals at Blind Persons Association cross roads and special facilities at ICICI Bank.
‘‘If involved in basic planning, having facilities like designate parking space, grab bars, ramps, kerbs, low height phone booths and ATM and bank counters etc won’t cost more than four per cent of the cost”, they said. They have already succeeded in having disabled-friendly features on Delhi Metro and Dilli Hat. The revenue in Dilli Haat has shot up to Rs 3 crore a year due to these features, they say.
Hemant Pradhan of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd, Meena Purohit of City Pulse, Atul Parikh of UTI Bank and Rajat Bhargava of Le Maridien who were present at the meeting, promised to incorporate disabled-friendly features to their respective sectors.
Sachdeva said Samarthya was in touch with Research and Design Services Organisation, Lucknow, a wing of Indian Railways, for redesigning the coach for the disabled as the present ones are not found compatible.
On luke warm response from the service sector, he said: ‘‘if they have not come, they are the losers...we are not always at the receiving end, we can also pay if we gain accessibility...competition is heavy in the services sector and PWDs cannot be ignored or marginalised for long,’’ he said.