Public places in Madurai non-inclusive; no accessibility for the differently-abled

Many public facilities remain inaccessible to differently-abled people.

More than six years have passed since the enactment of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 but its assurance of “full and effective participation and inclusion in society” for the differently-abled is yet to be fully implemented in Madurai district as differently-abled people complain of a continuing struggle to access several public facilities and institutions.  

B. Vishwanathan (55), a person with mobility impairment and a member of the Spinal Injured Persons Association, said public facilities like banks, parks, eateries, fair-price shops and convenience stores remain inaccessible to differently-abled people even today. 

“With no proper facilities like ramps, lifts, badly designed ramps with no railings, among others, we are not able to act independently. We are pushed to seek help from others, to be dependent on other people for even small movements is very embarrassing,” he added. 

Mentioning the poor accessibility facilities in government buildings and hospitals, S. Raja, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Crawling differently abled federation, said, “Madurai Corporation though having a ramp is not designed properly to enable differently abled people to access the facility on their own.” 

Despite having such facilities, the administrations have no idea about how it should be maintained and designed in order to be fully utilized, he added.  

In addition to this, he pointed out the poor design of ramp like structure at Government Rajaji Hospital medical board section near the Ophthalmology department, where differently-abled people mostly use it for medical check ups to procure disability certificates to avail all sorts of government benefits. 

He said, “About 100 to 200 differently-abled people use the place on a regular basis, but it is designed in a way that no differently abled person can use it on their own. The ramp structure is kept very high without any railing, making it inaccessible,” he added.