Lagging behind its scheduled deadline, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has finally made the move to fast-track the process of making all the 22 international airports in the country disabled-friendly.

The Ministry has invited bids to conduct an access audit of all the international airports to study if they are accessible to 'divyangs', also known as people with disabilities (PwDs).

This is first of its kind exercise involving India's international airports to study the barriers, if any, that make travelling difficult for people suffering from various disabilities, for the aged and pregnant women.

The Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities, under the Ministry, has invited bids from empanelled access auditors for the project under the Centre's Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan (Accessible India Campaign).

In a bid to achieve universal accessibility to PwDs as desired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of 'Inclusive India', the campaign was launched by Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley and Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot last year on December 3 on the occasion of International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

In its strategy paper on making India Accessible, the Ministry declared to make that all the international airports accessible to all the people with special needs by July 2016.

However, while it was supposed to complete the task by July this year, it could only initiate the process of the exhaustive study.

The bids will be finalised next week, following which the selected auditors will have to conduct audit by July next year. They will evaluate the airports on different parameters, including width of doorways, ramps, tactile flooring, adaptation of toilets for wheel-chair users, Braille symbols and auditory signals in elevators, said the official.

As per the strategy paper prepared as part of the Centre's campaign, an airport is considered accessible only if people with disabilities face no barrier in entry and are able to use all facilities, including for boarding and disembarking from flights.

Access audits are an important means of ensuring accessibility and must cover all stages of planning, design, construction, maintenance,  and monitoring and evaluation.

Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/all-intl-airports-soon-to-be-disabled-friendly.html