Key buildings, stations, websites to be made disabled friendly

New Delhi: With around 2.68 crore persons living with disability in India, government today said it has set a target to convert 4,800 key buildings, all international airports, 75 railway stations, 25 per cent of public transport buses and 3000 public-centric websites into disabled friendly services by July next year.

Under its Accessible India campaign, which is divided into three components, Accessible Environment, Transport and Information and Communication Accessibility, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment will conduct an access-audit of at least 100 important government buildings in 48 cities and convert them into fully accessible infrastructure for the differently-abled by July, 2016.

"We have selected 48 cities in this country and asked the state governments to give us the list of 100 buildings in each of these cities. We will make all these 4,800 buildings accessible through retro-fitting after doing an access-audit," said Mukesh Jain, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Public transport including railways stations, airports and buses will be covered in the second section of the campaign.

"Transport system is absolutely inaccessible in this country. While all international airports have been decided to be made accessible by July 2016, domestic airports will be done by July 2019. A1, A and B category of railways stations, which are 75 in number will be improvised to make them disabled friendly by the same period (2016)," he said, adding that 25 per cent of the buses will also be included in the Transport Accessible campaign

For increased access to information to differently-abled persons, 3,000 out of 6,000 people-centric websites, including passport services, will be made accessible.

"The target will ensure conversion of public documents, such as laws, regulations and reports, and all current websites to meet the relevant International Organization for Standardization," Jain said.