CHANDIGARH: The country's first sensory park for the blind has lost touch with their requirements. Located in Sector 26 here, it is short of maintenance and special facilities but full of obstacles.
When the municipal corporation opened it in 2009, the idea was to give the people living with blindness an amusement park designed in a classic style and fitted with exciting playing machines and fun corners such as fantasy land, dream garden, and adventure land. The layout included aromatic plants to provide the visually impaired people with knowledge of the flora and fauna through the senses of touch, taste, smell, and sound. The site was selected because it lay near the Institute for the Blind

In the second phase, the planners proposed to build a bird's corner where the children who have lost their sight could learn about the winged friends by stroking the artificial birds and listening to their recorded sounds. When TOI revisited it on Wednesday, the park had no sensors installed to guide the visually impaired people along the path. The team found a revolving gate at the entrance, due to which, most of the students from the Institute for the Blind are unable to find their way in.

The speakers installed in the park to guide the users are not operational. The maintenance workers have broken the boundary railing to bring their trimming machines and tractor-trailers into the park. A member of the maintenance team said all the flowers planted in the park were seasonal and not of the variety that even a blind person could judge from the fragrance. "This park is frequented more by the people with normal vision," he said.

Ajay, a boy from Class IX at the Institute for the Blind, said the students of his school hardly visited the park, as it had nothing designed for them. His hostel group has used it only for cricket practice on a few odd occasions.

Former nominated councillor Dr A P Sanwaria, who was on the committee that went on a study tour to a similar facility in Bangkok after this park was proposed said that the objective of developing this park had been defeated. "The blind visitors to Thailand's park could feel the beauty of the nature by touching the details of the plants scripted in Braille. The MC should hire blind experts for the park and add aesthetic and musical features to the place."
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/countrys-first-park-for-the-blind-has-nothing-to-touch-smell-taste-or-hear/articleshow/62827242.cms