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We have seen some differently-abled people expressing their joy by going to the beach through the recently constructed special path at Chennai Marina. If you raise the question whether all places in Tamil Nadu are accessible for disabled people, the answer is “No”.
December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The UN General Assembly has set up a day to discuss the issues of people with disabilities and their rights. The theme for this year is “Solutions towards Inclusive Development: The Role of Innovation in Creating an Accessible and Equitable World”.
Tamil Nadu, which is leading in various development indices such as education and health, is there a way for people with disabilities to access all services? In this regard, Deepak Nathan, the leader of the December 3 Movement, which works for the rights of the disabled, spoke to the BBC.
Deepak explained that access to a service by disabled people can be divided into three.
Approaching a place
“We think that government offices, which are rarely visited, should be made suitable for people with disabilities. But schools, colleges, restaurants, wedding halls, malls etc. should be set up according to us. Only 2-3 malls in Chennai have disabled parking facilities.
Private buildings in Tamil Nadu are not disabled-friendly. How many apartments are within our reach?
image source, Deepak Nathan/Facebook
Individuals also have a responsibility to make a place accessible to people with disabilities. The government alone has no stake in this. The whole community has a role to play.
When granting a license for a building, it must be ensured that it is accessible to persons with disabilities.
We have to see how mature the society is in this regard,” he says.
In a recent trip to Finland, Deepak says that if a wheelchair user goes out of the house, he goes everywhere in it. He says that as it has been established there, lifts and pedestrian overpasses should also be constructed at railway stations in Tamil Nadu.
“People with disabilities also have the problem of obesity. I have to go to the gym myself. But, there is no gym here for me to go and exercise. All gyms are upstairs. Not on the bottom floor”.
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Accessing the Services
But access to buildings is not the only thing that matters, says Deepak, the services provided there should be for people with disabilities.
“Especially, it is not enough to create platforms for differently abled students in schools. Is learning and teaching appropriate for them? Establish an ‘inclusive education system’.
There should also be a way to access services such as banks and supermarkets,” says Deepak.
Apart from that, attention needs to be paid to entertainment aspects, he says that movies should have sign translation and he questions how many websites are accessible to people with disabilities.
The main requirement is to follow the guidelines laid down by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) while designing the websites in such a way that all disabled people can access them.
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Economic Status of Persons with Disabilities
Thirdly, the cost of getting any good or service should be in line with the economic status of the disabled. Because international statistics show that people with disabilities are often poor. Disparities faced by people with disabilities in terms of education, employment etc. are the reasons why they are poor.
“Therefore, service charges should be made accessible to persons with disabilities including banking services”
Therefore, there is a need to develop a society that is inclusive of people with disabilities, keeping all three in mind.
Deepak says that even if a building is accessible to people with disabilities and has services within it, if the fee is not affordable for them, it will not be available.
When asked why there is still a shortage in designing services for people with disabilities, he said, “Each service depends on market demand. If you look at it that way, most people say that the number of people with disabilities is less. However, many elderly people get arthritis. Therefore, elderly people and people with temporary physical disabilities should be included in the disabled category. If so, their number is large” is Deepak’s argument.
Are the visually impaired left alone?
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Muthuchelvi, a visually impaired person working as a Manager (Scale 2) in a public sector bank, says they feel left out when it comes to the differently abled.
“The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, the ‘UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities’ require ‘audio signals’ to be placed on roads. But audio signals are not available in most places in Tamil Nadu. So, one has to cross a road but depend on one. The platforms also lack a tactile surface. Most of the roads in Tamilnadu are too bad to walk alone.
Notice boards are not written in Braille anywhere in public places. Although there are exceptions to the rule in some places, we do not know where they are,” says Muthuchelvi.
image source, Muthuselvi
He said that it is not yet understood here what kind of physical disability is needed.
One percent reservation for the visually impaired should be fully implemented,” he says.
“There are hundreds of government colleges in Tamil Nadu. There are more than 160 government aided colleges. But only 5-6 visually impaired people will work there. The same is true in schools. “Many people are waiting for employment after writing the UGC and NET exams,” he said.
“Books, internet services should be in the form of screen reading. Fonts must be in Unicode. Everything should be created in audio format as well. Also during the exams screen reading software should be available in order to write the exam on the computer. “Because the scribe arranged for the visually impaired to take the exam, will suddenly become unavailable,” he says.
Muthuchelvi says that services such as opening a bank account and issuing an ATM card are still not available to the visually impaired.
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