Access–ability

Transport becoming accessible?

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) is getting ready to identify companies that build and deliver 117 air–conditioned, disabled– friendly coaches at a cost of more than Rs. 760 crore to begin with.

The plan is to run 39 trains each with three coaches of modern design, light weight and made of stainless steel/aluminium. The number of coaches can go up to six if required.

BMRC plans to acquire the coaches in phases. The Byappanahalli terminal will have the facility to park and maintain 170 coaches while the proposed Jalahalli terminal, behind the Aiyyappa Temple near Jalahalli Circle, will have the facility to park and maintain 110 coaches.

The first train is scheduled to run between Byappanahalli and Chinnaswamy Stadium in March 2010. To begin with, BMRC wants to run trains at a frequency of four minutes and increase it to three minutes as and when demand increases.

BMRC Managing Director V. Madhu said seven entities, including five consortia, had responded to the global tender. They are Fireman Transport SPA, Caserta, Italy; CAF, S.A. Madrid, Spain; Norico, China– led consortium with Changchun Rail Co., China and Jessop and Co. Ltd., Kolkata, as members; Siemens AG Earlangen, Germany–led consortium with Siemens Ltd., New Delhi, as member; Bombardier Transportation, Berlin, Germany–led consortium with Bombardier Transportation, India Ltd., New Delhi, as member; BEML, Bangalore–led consortium with ROTEM, Korea, Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Japan, as members.

Mr. Madhu said that smoking would be a strict no–no both on platforms and in the Metro coaches. The coaches will be vestibuled and they will have public address system and electronic displays showing the name of station approaching or the station where the train has made a halt.

He promised that the coaches would be absolutely safe for women. “You will reach the next station in just about a minute or two, ” he told The Hindu. There would be no reserved coaches for women.

“You will not see people hanging from the metro coaches as you do in the Mumbai suburban trains. The trains will not move unless the doors are closed,” he said. BMRC would allow people with bags even though a law under preparation does empower us to restrict baggage. But vendors would not be allowed to use the Metro to transport vegetables, fish, etc.

There would be no toilets and washbasins in the coaches. The coaches will be disabled–friendly with their floor level being on par with the platform. Wheelchairs could move into them easily, Mr. Madhu said.

Source:Govind D. Belgaumkar. BMRC to buy air–conditioned, disabled–friendly coaches, The Hindu, Bangalore, 27 August 2007.

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Bill Gates Foundation donates JAWS for cyber cafe

Nethrodaya, a non–government organisation (NGO), today launched a cyber cafe for visually impaired people of Chennai using the JAWS software for internet access. The software was provided by Bill Gates Foundation and Freedom Scientific to make Internet more accessible for visually impaired.

The cyber cafe at Moggapair area of the city is the first of its kind in the country to enable visually impaired people to access the Internet using a special software called JAWS.

G. Govinda Krishnan, head of 'Nethrodaya, said that for the past couple of decades, the visually impaired had been finding it tough to operate or to use computer. Visually impaired students had to take some external assistance to pursue their studies, but the cyber cafe has come as a great help to them.

“I am from a village where the computer facilities are not available. Here (at cyber cafe) we get all the information that we need. Most importantly, in this centre, the blind people can also access Internet, which is useful for collecting information and study materials,” said Mari Selvi, a visually impaired student from Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli District.

The state government has provided land to construct the building to house the cyber cafe.

About JAWS: The most popular screen reader worldwide, JAWS® for Windows® works with a PC to provide access to today’s software applications and the Internet. With its internal software speech synthesizer and the computer’s sound card, information from the screen is read aloud, providing technology to access a wide variety of information, education and job related applications. JAWS also outputs to refreshable braille displays, providing unmatched braille support of any screen reader on the market. The product is marketed by Freedom Scientific, USA.

Source: Chennai gets a blind-friendly cyber café, Asia News International, 28 August 2007.

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