From the States

Guwahati: Disabled place demands before Gogoi

The United Disabled Rights Forum, an umbrella body of various disabled organizations met with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to discuss its four-point charter of demands, including the filling up of backlog posts reserved for physically challenged candidates. The posts have been lying vacant in various State Government departments since 1981.

The meeting was crucial in insofar as the long-standing demands of the disabled people are concerned. “After a prolonged struggle, last year the State Government completed the selection process for filling up of 662 backlog posts lying vacant in as many as 37 departments for the period 1995 to 2004. But the recruitment in these posts are held up till date,” sources said.

The Forum has also been demanding three per cent reservation for physically challenged people in every development scheme taken up by the forum, i.e. setting up of a rest house in the heart of the city for disabled people coming from various parts of the State, streamlining the procedure for National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation (NHFDC) loan for unemployed disabled youths and appointment of a full fledge disabled commissioner.

Although a commissioner has been appointed a couple of years back to deal with the affairs of disabled people, due to lack of budgetary allocation and required infrastructure the step remained ineffective, sources added.

Asom Social Welfare Minister Ajanta Neog, Government official and representative of various disabled organizations, included that of the All Assam Disabled Persons' Association, Bikalanga Unnayan Parishad and Orthopedic Handicapped Association attended the meeting.

Source: Disabled move Gogoi with demands. The Sentinel, Daily. Guwahati, 15 September 2006 . .

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New Delhi: Delhi University making its campus disabled friendly

Delhi University (DU) is waking up to the need for equitable access and facilities on campus. Years of effort to address the disabled students' needs have concretized a bit. The University's maiden plan to make the ground floor of each of its buildings barrier-free has seen the light of day with Jubilee Hall. A ramp, paved with sandstone-texture tiles, with supporting rails, has been constructed at the entrance threshold. So, a disabled student can now bring his wheelchair in and park it outside his room. Down the verandah, a ramp descends into the lawn. Elsewhere, another slope leads from the verandah down to the badminton court, opposite two visually challenged students' room. Along the front, side, and back verandahs, iron railings have a hump-like access near the court. Further away, a small step outside a door, which opens towards the way to the canteen and the back lawn, has been replaced with a sloping surface. Two ground floor toilet doorways have been changed from single to double, which open outwards so that a wheelchair user can close the door, once he/she is in. The toilets were thrown open for use but were locked last week as some modifications were still to be done. In one of the toilets, a wall had yet to be pulled down to make more room. Also, on the staircase leading to the first floor, iron hand-support has been fitted into the wall.

Vinod Sena, who was Chairman of DU's Committee for Persons with Disabilities (CPD) from its inception in 1998 until its dissolution in April 2006, said, “The bathroom is being redone. A wall has to be shifted.” About other features, he informs, “There should be guide rails along the walls… and the toilets require horseshoe-shaped garb bars on both sides of the wall.”

Next in line for similar redesigning are the Central Reference Library in North Campus and a women's hostel in South Campus. Work has just started at the library while changes to the hostel would be taken up within this academic year, informs Sena.

About the usability of the new facilities at the PG hostel, Jitendra Sharma, a Jubilee Hall resident student with paralysis in both legs, says, “One can easily bring a wheelchair in till the garden.” Earlier the wheelchair had to be parked outside. Rajesh Sing, a blind student putting up here, believes that changes are called for but points out certain “discrepancies” “The verandah railing serves no purpose. In your view, maybe it does. In the last six years that I've been coming here, I never heard of anybody falling down from the verandah. This place is haunted by monkeys and species of all kinds. Yesterday I had an encounter with a monkey. It's a danger.” Besides, water coolers are placed in the passages where a wheelchair cannot reach”, he notes. He adds, “The mess is not barrier-free. The common room has the same kind of problem.”

In fact, pole stands in the centre of the door of the common room through which one has to pass to reach the dining hall. The mess door, too, has a vertical wooden beam in the middle of the frame. “There should be a straight passage,” with a rail, says Singh. “If the common room is noisy and crowded, it is difficult to find a way.”

Under the statutory three per cent quota, the university boasts of admitting around 350 disabled candidates every year and claims to have about, 1,000 such pupils on its rolls.

Source: Now rolling ramps, railings. The Hindustan Times, Daily, New Delhi , 13 September 2006.

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