Thursday, November 8, 2012

Reality check of Accessiblity at Post Office: Lodi Road

Dear Friends,

Please refer to my earlier post - Post offices in Delhi are inaccessible but Department claims otherwise, incorporating media coverage on pathetic situation prevailing in the Post Offices of Delhi and the awareness level of the senior officials of the Department of Post on the Accessibility.

I had a reality check of accessibility status of the post office at Jor Bagh in the NDMC area which claims to be better off then most MCD controlled areas when it comes to accessibility in the public infrastructure.

The reality check /access audit  photos speak for themselves here:


Picture of the Lodi Road Post Office Signage
This Lodi Road Post Office is in a posh colony of South Delhi under
the New Delhi Municipal Council.

Picture of road side eatery blocking the pedestrian pathway
This protruding counter of this eatery on the pedestrian pathway
leading to the post office blocks the pedestrian movement 
Photo showing absence of kerb ramp on the pedestrian pathway leading to post office
The pedestrian pathway leading to the Post Office
doesn't have a kerb ramp or kerb cut. 


Photo showing decked up entrance with offers of 7% off on gold coins but access blocked by barriers
The Gate at the post office fails to welcome me. The barriers
and the huge kerb stare at me!

photo showing blocked access
These barriers purportedly placed to stop entry of vehicles also act
as barrier to my independent mobility, thereby nullifying the benefits
of the ramps provided!

photo showing ramp without handrails
From the entrance two slope ramps like a U are provided but
with no handrails or signage!

Ramp ends with a thud without and tactile indication. The ramp
edge is a trip hazard on both ends.


Similarly the other side of the ramp has no handrails  and
ends with an threshold which is a trip hazard.

Photo showing stepped entry to post office, high counters and use of granite flooring which is slippery
Entrance 1 is stepped and granite has been used in the post office
which makes it slippery and inaccessible to the visitors with disabilities.

Entrance 2 is also stepped with a similar pattern. The counter height
on both sides is inaccessible to those with disabilities and
caters to only standing persons.
When the reality check at the prominent areas under NDMC is so alarming what do we expect of the other post offices in Delhi, especially the ones in the areas served by MCD where the civil amenities are even more pathetic. This is in gross violation of the prevalent norms of barrier free environment.

Another reality check coming week in an area served by MCD !
regards

SC Vashishth


DDA's revision of its Lift Installation Policy still faulty

Dear Colleagues,

In view of problems faced by senior citizens, persons with disabilities and patients residing in upper floors of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Flats and also in light of legal mandate of The Persons with Disabilities Act (equal opportunities, protection of rights and full participation) Act 1995 and the State's obligation under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that India has ratified, the DDA has revised its erstwhile policy on Procedure for issue of NOC for installation of lifts in Group housing flats built by DDA to remove the bottlenecks in facilitating ageing in place and barrier free environment in the old residential flats/ group housing societies.

The back ground

A good number of people  who bought the DDA flats  long time ago when were young have acquired age related disabilities, ailments that restrict mobility and family members, children who have difficulty negotiating stairs. The restriction in policy has rendered them prisoners in their own "once happy homes". This is against the right to independent mobility, equal participation, Accessibility in built infrastructure and housing as  mandated by the UNCRPD and the Disability legislation of India.

All the new DDA buildings have the lifts, but earlier the provision of lift wasn't mandatory up to  four-storey buildings.  However, subsequently the DDA had permitted the residents of upper floors who were in favour of installing lift to permit installation subjection to certain condition, and one among them was NOC from ground floor owner.

"I haven't gone out of my house for over two years now due to arthritis since I can not climb stairs and my flat is on first floor" said Ms. Arora, a retired teacher aged 65 and a resident of DDA Flats, Mayapuri, New Delhi.

What changes after the revision in DDA's policy?

With a revision in policy on lift installation in DDA buildings by the Authority, a No Objection Certificate (NOC) is not needed any more from the ground floor owner.  According to the previous policy, the upper floor residents were required to acquire a NOC from all the floor owners to permit them to install a lift in the building.  But a disagreement by the ground floor owner was usually posing a problem for others to implement the concept.

As per the new policy,  the occupants of the upper floors wanting to install lift in their buildings will just need to obtain NOCs from the upper floor occupants,  a recommendation of the lift manufacturing agency on technical convenience, location of the lift and safety criteria and of course a structural safety certificate from a registered architect.  The expense for the lift installation would have to be equally shared by the people owning flats in upper floors.

Why even the revised policy fails to deliver?

However, the catch is, can my right as a person with disability or as a senior citizen with mobility impairments subject to NOCs from the neighbours? Its known that in old age, one gets cranky and many do not get along well with neighbours. In such a case the state has given my absolute right to mobility and independent living  in the hands of non-cooperating neighbours in other words - non state actors!

If the neighbour says I don't need it and I will not pool in the money,  the person who requires the lift due to reduced mobility has to not only foot the entire cost of installation of lift but also pay a certain fee to the DDA (as if it was a luxury!).

Therefore, in my considered opinion, this is still not in tune with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Constitution of India. The State has to come with clearly with plans and implement them without delay for every delay is justice denied. Nothing less than this is acceptable to us as citizens of this country.

Relevant Useful Links:


-- Subhash Chandra Vashishth, Advocate

TAGS: DDA Flats with Elevator, Lifts in DDA buildings, Process of lift installation in DDA Building, Barrier Free DDA housing,  Accessible housing, Barrier Free environment, accessibility in housing, ageing in place, Subhash Vashishth,

Monday, October 29, 2012

Statue of Liberty is now officially barrier free


Dear Friends,

28 October 2012

A good news for the accessible tourism sector! Coinciding with the monument’s 126th birthday, the iconic Crown of the Statue of Liberty will reopen on October 28, 2012, after being closed for a year for renovations to make the New York landmark safer and more accessible to people in wheelchairs.

The renovations include new staircases and an elevator that will make the tourist attraction  more accessible for persons with disabilities. For the first time, tourist in wheelchairs will be able to access the observation decks. The final cost for the renovations totaled about $30 million.

There are also more stairs than ever before, with a daunting 393 steps to the crown, where there were previously 354 slightly steeper steps. Wheelchair accessible elevators inside the pedestal bring visitors to just below Lady Liberty's sandals.

The statue is 151 feet from base to torch. It sits atop the 89-foot (27-meter) tall stone pedestal, which sits on a 65-foot (20-meter) tall foundation in the shape of a star.

Visitors in wheelchairs, who could view the statue only from the ground before, can now ascend to the top of statue's pedestal and see inside the structure. Though they can not access inside the body of the statute still due to design constraints.

Designed by Frédéric Bartholdi, the iconic statue in New York Harbor, the statue, a gift from France to the United States, was dedicated in 1886 and declared a national monument in 1924. In 2009, the crown was reopened to the public for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Post Offices in Delhi are inaccessible but Deptt. claims otherwise


29 October 2012,

NEW DELHI: Gulmohar Park's post office exists in the basement of DDA market, down a flight of stairs in a structure with no ramps or lift. That, however, hasn't deterred the south division of the India Post from declaring it "barrier-free" in its reply to an RTI enquiry filed by Dr Satyendra Singh, professor of physiology at University College of Medical Sciences and doctor at GTB Hospital.

Singh, himself disabled, filed a query under RTI Act in July requesting information from the postal department on the levels of accessibility at Delhi post offices. The reply is worrying as many first-floor post offices have no lifts and many of those declared "barrier-free" have stairs leading to them.

South division claims 65 of their 67 post offices (including Gulmohar Park's), are "barrier-free". The ones at Chittaranjan Park and Kailash Colony, it admits, are on the first floor "without any facility of lift". South division also claims that "ramps have been constructed for free movement of wheelchairs" and "height of all the counters has been lowered for easy access".

West division, too, claims "all the post offices of this division are easily accessible and barrier-free". "The two post offices in Rajouri Garden are both on the ground floor. The one in Janta Market has a very high pavement in front of it and the one in the main market is on a narrow and potholed bylane frequently flooded by sewage water and is slippery. A visually-impaired person can't reach that one," says Singh. The postal department didn't reply to his queries immediately but responded only after a first appeal was filed.

Singh travels 10 kilometers to Vasundhara, Ghaziabad, to send a speed post as the post offices closer to home all are inaccessible. "We only have impairments, it's the society which makes us disabled," he says.

North division runs 81 post offices of which 14 are above ground-floor or occupy multiple-floors. As per the division's own admission, "there is no provision of lifts in any post office building". However, the division had written to the executive engineer, postal civil division, for providing assistance as per the Disability Act, in seven post offices (including Ashok Vihar, Civil Lines, Malka Ganj and Rohini Sector 7) first in January 2009 and again in July and September, 2010, "but the needful has not been done yet". Southwest division runs 60 post offices, mostly from rented buildings, and 46 of them don't have ramps for wheelchairs. None of the post offices in the southwest division are on the first floor.

In central division, four post offices are operating from first-floors, "without having the lift" or any "separate arrangement for the people with disability". East division, too, states that "no post office under this division is with the facility of lift" and "no facilities were provided" for people with disability on POs above ground-floor. They say that barring seven post offices (at Krishna Nagar, Azad Nagar, Old Seemapuri, Mayur Vihar, Shahdaramandi, Gandhi Nagar Bazar and GTB Hospital), the rest of their 62 offices are "accessible to all persons with disabilities". Apparently, the stairs (without even handrails) at the PO in Jhilmil Industrial Area are not a barrier.

In the first question, Singh had sought "accessibility status" and explained what he meant by adding parenthetically, "whether accessible/barrier-free or not to persons with disabilities". In reply to this query, the office of the director, General Post Office, informs, "The GPO is centrally located and it is, therefore, accessible for all".





4 November 2012

KOLKATA, 4 NOV: Dr Satendra Singh travels kilometres to post letters, even though there is a post office on the campus of the hospital where he works. “I don't like to tell people, you do this for me,” he said.

Dr Singh, who had polio which left him disabled, is an assistant professor of physiology at the University College of Medical Sciences and GTB Hospital, Delhi. He said he had sent many letters to the hospital superintendent to tell him that the on-campus post office couldn't be easily accessed by him, but didn't get a reply.

Starting to think about accessibility elsewhere also, Dr Singh said, “I decided I should know the status of all the post offices in the Capital of the nation.” A series of RTI responses show that many post offices in the Capital lack the facilities that would bring them in line with the country's obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, he said.

The Delhi East Division office's response listed seven of the post offices in their zone that are not accessible, for example. The Central Division said, “as per records no such facilities have been provided” in response to his request for details of “all the standard facilities for barrier-free access made available for the Persons with Disability.”

South Division officials said in their response that 65 of their 67 post offices  are “barrier-free”, but two ~ one at Chittaranjan Park and the other at Kailash Colony ~ are on the first floor “without any facility of lift”.

Dr Singh was also surprised that the only complaint about accessibility in post offices had, in fact, been filed by him.

“It is shocking. But I am not only blaming the post offices but also the community that they are just sitting there.” He said, in his opinion, this silence is a sign of real disability. “If somebody is not raising his voice, he is truly a disabled person.” If post offices were made accessible, it wouldn't only help the disabled, he said, but also senior citizens and young children.

Dr Singh was also concerned about the response from the Office of the Director of the General Post Office to the questions asking about the “accessible status” of the New Delhi General Post Office, and specifically “whether it is accessible/barrier-free or not to Persons with Disabilities (PwD)”.

“New Delhi GPO is centrally located, it is therefore accessible to all,” the response said. “They thought accessibility meant connectivity,” said Dr Singh.

“A person at a very senior post is not aware of the definition of accessibility, what about lower people...”.

Source: The Stateman

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

New 1100 DTC Buses being bought by Dehi Govt will be inaccessible!

Dear Colleagues, 


The Delhi Cabinet has cleared purchase of 1100 high floor buses (I do not call them standard floor buses since modern Low Floor is the standard for the persons with disabilities!)



"Currently, DTC has 5,667 buses, out of which 3,781 are modern low-floor buses, purchased over the last five years. “The remaining 1,886 buses are obsolete,” said a senior Delhi government official. 



We were waiting these buses to go away from the Delhi roads to be replaced by the standard low floor buses so that the entire fleet could boast off to be accessible and disabled friendly. However, this sudden decision of the Government of Delhi to replace the rickety old high floor buses with new high floor buses is not reason for us to be happy. These buses from day one are useless, obsolete, inaccessible and disabled unfriendly, hence not welcomed.



It would be prudent on the part of the Government of Delhi to consider replacing these old buses with low floor only so that we achieve an aim of inclusive and barrier free society that provides its services based on universal design of products and not on exclusive designs for various segments. I find no alternate to this given the fact that all our pedestrian infrastructure and the bus q shelters in Delhi are built keeping the low floor bus as the standard to allow easy access to all. 



The disability sector could have agreed to even high floor buses provided the corresponding street infrastructure especially the boarding and de-boarding points are made in tune with the high floor and that the bus allows easy access to the disabled. This may only happen in a dedicated BRT system where the height of new bus q shelters may be kept accordingly. However, this doesn't seem to be the planning of the Government. 



We are raising our voice against this decision. The Government must think of promoting inclusive cities to realize the mandate of UNCRPD and stop taking arbitrary decisions that exclude the disabled and the elderly from its urban and transport planning.



The city is already troubled with the high foot paths being built by the PWD after the maintenance of roads was taken away by the Delhi Government from the MCD over the later's inaction.



Below is the coverage from Indian Express:






New Delhi, Tue Oct 23 2012,


With the Delhi Cabinet clearing the way for the purchase of 1,100 standard-floor CNG buses, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) will start the process of replacing obsolete vehicles in its fleet. The new buses will cost the Delhi government around Rs 330 crore and will be purchased through a global tender.


Following a meeting of the Delhi Cabinet on Monday, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said the government was taking steps to improve public transport in the city. “There is an urgent need to replace 1,886 standard-floor buses, which have completed their prescribed life for economic run,” Dikshit said.



She said the plying of such buses was causing loss to DTC and affecting its image.



The buses will be purchased with maintenance for 7,50,000 km or 12 years of operations, whichever is later. “The buses will be purchased through a global tender. In the DTC fleet of 5,667 buses, 3,781 are low-floor variants while the remaining 1,886 are obsolete and hence not dependable,” Dikshit said.



She said the new non-AC buses would be purchased at the earliest.