The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Ramps, rails for disabled ‘must meet specifications’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 04, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Ramps, rails for disabled ‘must meet specifications’

Staff Reporter

Second master plan will be more user-friendly: CMDA

— Photo: S.S. KUMAR

INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT: (From right) Sukriti Social Foundation trustee Sowmya Simhan with CMDA member secretary M. Nasimuddin and Anna University Architecture Department head Ranee Vedamuthu at a workshop on ‘Barrier free environment’ in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: Ramps and rails by themselves are not enough to make a building barrier-free and inclusive; it’s important is to ensure that they meet specifications, activists and architects told a meeting here on Friday.

They were taking part in a one-day workshop on a barrier-free environment, organised by the Department of Architecture, Anna University.

Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority member secretary M. Nasimuddin, who inaugurated the workshop, said the second master plan for the city would be more disabled-friendly. “We will impose a condition that the minimum facilities needed to make the buildings user friendly must be provided,” he said. The CMDA has also proposed to sensitise its planners to the need to make buildings inclusive, he added.

The focus of the workshop, jointly organised by Sukriti Social Foundation, was that ‘all slopes are not ramps’. It is necessary to ensure that the ramps conform to specifications. Architects Abhishek Ray and Monolitha Chatterjee, Amar Seva Sangam secretary S. Sankara Raman participated in the technical session.

The speakers felt that since people with disabilities were not often seen on the road using wheelchairs the need for an inclusive building had not yet percolated down. Just as green buildings were gaining focus as a concept even in classrooms, it was necessary to evaluate every classroom project for integrating barrier free environment, the speakers felt.

Head of the Architecture department Ranee Vedamuthu said the students would be taken to buildings, including the Egmore Railway station, which had recently installed facilities for people with disability.

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