UT not fully disabled-friendly

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 3

While Chandigarh is already on its way to become a Smart City, persons with disability are yet to feel a part of the bigger plan with most of the areas still not disabled-friendly.

Be it Sector 17, world famous Rose Garden, Sukhna Lake or Capitol Complex, which was recently included in the list of World Heritage sites, most of the public places are yet to ready to welcome the disabled.

Though the UT Engineering Department has made provisions in 42 government buildings out of the 43 identified in the accessibility audit at a cost of Rs 6 crore, there are still several buildings, including the Chandigarh MC building, that don’t have the provision for the disabled.

Harman Sidhu, a member of the Road Safety Council of Chandigarh, said there was no provision for barrier-free movement for disabled people in the MC building where hundreds of people visit for official work daily.

He said same was the case of Sector 17, which had become out of reach for the disabled. He could not move his wheelchair from the parking area of Sector 17. He had to send someone from the parking lot to buy something for him.

Harman said parking areas were earmarked for the disabled, but these were mostly occupied by other people.

Ajay Jagga, an advocate, said the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, makes it mandatory to provide facilities for persons with disabilities at bus stops, railway stations, airports, parking spaces, toilets and ticketing counters so that they could use these facilities with ease. But in reality, the Act remains only on paper.

There was no provision in any of the public toilets here for the disabled. He said there was no facility for the disabled at Sukhna Lake. Similarly, entries and toilets at the Rose Garden, Terraced Garden and Fragrance Garden were not differently abled-friendly.

The city needs to be more sensitive to the needs of these people and improve facilities so as to provide them easy access to all buildings and public places. Even restaurants do not have facilities for the disabled and lack wheelchairs.

An officer of the UT Engineering Department said in the first phase, the court complex, schools, hospitals and police stations have been provided barrier-free facilities to the disabled people under the Accessible India Campaign.

The department had done the accessibility audit of all government buildings to make them disabled friendly and barrier-free on the directions of Parimal Rai, Adviser to the UT Administrator. Under the programme, ramps, tactile tiles or lifts had been provided wherever required in government buildings. Asha Jaswal Mayor said she would discuss the issue of making the buildings barrier-free for the disabled.