Sumati Nagrath a journalist at Business World conducted an interview on the accessibility of India’s facilities for disabled people.

Sumati interviewed two employees Shivani Gupta and Anjlee Agarwal.

Shivani Gupta is 38 years old and works at a company called AccessAbility, which is a company based in Delhi. Shivani is a specialist consultancy outfit and has an issue with Delhi’s public transport system.

She finds it to be the most “disabled-unfriendly” transport system for people like her on a wheel chair. Due to this Gupta is now a staunch advocate of a barrier-free environment and she is passionate about developing a concept of universal design.

She says that India “needs to create buildings that are accessible and usable by everyone, including people with disabilities,” .She says “these buildings and transport facilities should support the independent functioning of individuals so that they can participate without assistance and with dignity, in everyday activities.” Which is what universal design is all about.

Gupta suggests that it is wise for any upcoming building to provide accessibility at the design and construction stage itself. At that stage, the additional costs would be just about 2 per cent of the total project cost. “Building in accessibility features at a later stage will not only be more expensive but also very difficult,” she says.

Anjlee Agarwal, is an executive director of Samarthya which is a Delhi-based NGO. Anjlee propagates that a barrier-free environment needs to be created for disabled people. To overcome this barriers Samarthya worked in tandem with the Delhi Metro and DTC to make the city’s transport system accessible to disabled people. She say’s a majority of the public buildings and transport facilities are still not disabled-friendly despite the Disability Act (1995) which clearly states that the Central Coordination Committee should “ensure a barrier-free environment in public places, work places, etc”.

Sumati says that the key to solving these issues that people like Gupta and Agarwal are facing, lies in an increased awareness about problems faced by the disabled, and sensitisation and training of architects, town planners and policy makers, needs to be adopted.

Presently Sumati says specialist consultancy outfits such as Raghvan’s Enable India and Shivani Gupta’s AccessAbility are working earnestly to overcome these hurdles. They provide end-to-end solutions in training, employability and accessibility for the disabled.

Sumati also interviews Gupta about the inaccessability of India’s education system for the disabled.

“Education systems in India still tend to exclude those who are disabled,” says Gupta. “The curriculum of these so-called specialist schools is outdated and fails to equip people with disabilities with the skills necessary for employment in the new economy. So, when the private sector comes to recruit, we have an incredibly small pool of people with requisite skills.” Exclusive schools also deny a person the opportunity to acquire the soft skills necessary in negotiating contemporary workspaces.

Inherently Sumati say’s “that even though policies are in place to help provide empowerment to the disabled”, facilities need to be accessible to the disabled, which is a “red carpet to mending their lives”.

Sourced from:"Definitely abled"Published 03 September 2007 in Business World by Sumati Nagrath .Available at http://www.businessworld.in/content/view/2407/2485/1/0/