PIL in Madras High Court challenges tender notification for supply of MTC buses with floor height of 900 mm
The Hindu
Litigant says the buses should either be low floor (400 mm) or up to a maximum height of 650 mm with ramps/ kneeling system/lifts for entry in order to make them accessible to persons with disabilities, senior citizens and pregnant women
Cross disability rights activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar has waged yet another legal battle to ensure that all intra-city government buses are universally accessible to persons with disabilities, senior citizens, pregnant women and others. This time, she has challenged a tender notification issued by the Tamil Nadu Transport Department on October 10.
The notification had called for tenders for supplying 1,771 fully built non-AC diesel buses which included 1,170 buses with a floor height of 900 mm. She contended that the law permits procurement of only low floor buses (400 mm) or a maximum floor height of 650 mm with ramps/kneeling system/lifts for entry.
Acting Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy took up her public interest litigation petition for admission on Friday and ordered notice, returnable by two weeks, to the State government. In her affidavit, the petitioner complained that the government had been procuring low floor buses only on a piecemeal basis. She pointed out that the government ought to have ensured universally accessible buses as per the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 itself. When it was not done, activist Rajiv Rajan filed a PIL petition in the High Court in 2005 and obtained a series of orders.
Thereafter, the 1995 law was replaced with the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016. Even after this the government did not ensure that every bus procured by it was disabled friendly and hence, she was constrained to file a PIL petition in 2021 challenging a Government Order for purchasing only 10% low floor buses.
The PIL petition was disposed of on July 5 this year with a direction to the government to ply all its buses in conformity with the provisions of the 2016 Act, the statutory rules and the Harmonised Guidelines that had been framed by the Centre to ensure universal accessibility to public transport.
Yet, the government has now decided to purchase as many as 1,170 buses with a floor height of 900 mm which would be very difficult to access by persons with disabilities, the elderly and pregnant women, the petitioner said and urged the court to quash the October 10 tender notification.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.