With just 3% of India’s buildings accessible, our disabled are at a huge disadvantage

The Delhi High Court has criticised the sluggish pace at which access audits for the disabled are moving. The targets set as part of the Accessible Indian Campaign are never met

Celebrated British physicist Stephen Hawking, who died recently, once said: “People with disabilities are vulnerable because of the many barriers they face: attitudinal, physical, and financial. Addressing these barriers is within our reach.....But most important, addressing these barriers will unlock the potential of so many people with so much to contribute to the world.” Hawking’s call for action is something which will fall by the wayside here given the indifference created by red tape and government agencies. Expressing displeasure over the sluggishness with which the Delhi government was acting with respect to carrying out audits of the disabled friendliness of buildings, parks, schools and other public places, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar said on Wednesday: “We don’t want lip service from government agencies... we want action.”

A disabled woman at the New Delhi railway station. The Centre’s target of making at least 25% of public transport disabled-friendly is far from realised. (Raj K Raj/HT File)

But Delhi isn’t the only offender when it comes to inaction on matters that affect the lives of 26.8 million physically challenged people in the country. One of the recommendations of the Disabilities Bill, passed in Parliament in 2016, was setting a deadline for the creation of barrier-free access to buildings and transport systems. As part of the Accessible India Campaign, the flagship national programme to make public buildings and transport less hostile for the physically challenged, 50% of all of these were to be made fully disabled friendly by July 2018. But more than two years after the launch of the campaign, only 3% of buildings have become accessible, according to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD). At the launch of the campaign, 1,707 buildings were identified to be made accessible. Across 57 Indian cities, auditors gave pointers to the State on features needed to make buildings accessible. After the audits, state governments sent proposals to the DEPwD which released funds to retrofit these buildings. According to section 44 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, the norms for retrofitting included the creation of ramps in public buildings, modification of toilets for wheelchair users and installation of Braille symbols in elevators. But progress has been slow.