Railways to make 1500 railway stations in India accessible

Accessible public places in India are often an after-thought, and more than that, a “favor”. It is rarely an integral part of the architecture, design and construction. Nonetheless, smaller steps lead to bigger changes. Subhash, in his FaceBook profile, has expressed his informed thoughts on a recent government initiative to make 1500 railway stations accessible to the disabled. With his permission I’m publishing the text here.

By Subhash Chandra Vashishth

Indian Railways have been sitting over the access improvement plans over 10 years now. Several Writ petitions followed, but nothing more than assurances and promises came out.

The Indian Railways have decided to address access issues at some odd 1500 stations now which is nothing but a miniscule in such a vast country.

My Fears

And mind you, they say that they are doing it not because it is mandated under a binding Central Law called The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation)Act 1995 but because of the continuous requests which are being received from the physically challenged people from all over India. What a cruel joke on the 14 year old Legislative Enactment of Indian Parliament!

If Railways execute the access solutions at the standards at which they are currently doing at many of the stations, I fear whether we will ever have accessibility at Indian Railway Stations and trains !

As long as you call alternate access ramps, reserved parking slots, low height water taps and accessible toilets to be special facilities, I doubt it would be sustainable! Answer lies in Universal Design!

Why can’t the stations be designed to be accessible to all based on universal design rather than special access to some. Today, in the name of low height water taps, inaccessible taps have been built. There is no awarness in the implementing contractors and engineers. What they consider accessible is actually not accessible.

Perceptions about Accessibility Differ from Actual Accessibility

The simple question- do you involve competent consultants and users to ensure that the end product is fault free?

Perceptions of accessibility differ from person to person and this subjectivity kills the design and the usage of end product for the end user in absence of uniform universal design standards being adopted.