Date:12/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/12/stories/2008051253070400.htm

New Delhi

DU plans to get more disabled-friendly

Parul Sharma

Sign boards informing facilities being put up in the campus

University procuring tactile tiles to guide the visually impaired
Low-floor bus with a ramp to be brought on the campus

NEW DELHI: Delhi University is working towards constructing straight paths and erecting appropriate signage boards for making the campus more disabled-friendly for its differently-abled teachers and students.

The Equal Opportunities Cell (EOC) of Delhi University set up for the welfare of students belonging to categories of Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and disabled persons is exploring new areas to make the University more accessible to physically challenged students.

“The most important thing is access, barrier-free access to everyone. In the next one year, we want to reconstruct the paths in the University to make them straight so that they are friendly to the visually and orthopaedically impaired persons. There are some facilities for disabled students that have come up in the last one-and-a-half years, but not all are aware of it. We want major sign boards on the campus telling people about various such features,” said R. K. Agnihotri, EOC coordinator.

Just as the Delhi metro stations in the Capital are fitted with tactile tiles, the University too will procure them to guide the visually impaired persons as they walk.

Also in the pipeline is starting the facility of a low-floor bus on the campus in which a ramp will electronically come down to facilitate the movement of wheel-chair users for getting on and disembarking the vehicle.

“There will be one such bus each for North Campus and the South Campus. There will be a driver and caretaker in the vehicle. We have sent a request to the University authorities for procuring such buses specially designed for disabled persons,” Prof. Agnihotri pointed out.

“Fortunately, the authorities have been supportive and pro-active in getting things done. At EOC, we are trying to ensure that every complex, every building that is associated with the University has at least one unit that is disabled friendly. My target is that each building has a lift and parking space reserved for differently-abled persons,” he said.

In the last few months, the EOC has undertaken many activities in this direction. An Access Audit Report of every building of the University was carried out in association with NGO “Samarthya” on different problems with each institution that need to be addressed in the process.