The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi takes long strides to be barrier-free within this year

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Saturday, Jan 26, 2008
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New Delhi

Delhi takes long strides to be barrier-free within this year

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI: Moving in the direction of making Delhi accessible to all, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has in collaboration with Samarthya National Centre for Promotion of Barrier Free Environment for Disabled Persons identified 20 sites and services in the Capital, including 225 Delhi Transport Corporation bus queue shelters and New Delhi railway station, for making them barrier-free under its “Accessible Delhi” project.

As part of the two-year project that seeks to develop Delhi as a “model barrier-free city”, the Foundation had come out with a plan document, “Accessible Delhi -- A Road Map for 2003-2008”. The document identified bottlenecks to draw up appropriate design concepts and lay down an action strategy for all civic and government agencies involved in these areas.The Project Officer of Accessible Delhi project, Anjilee Agarwal, said the access audit of 18 of the 20 sites and services had already been completed and the reports submitted to their respective owning agencies. Of these sites and services, six pertain to the New Delhi Municipal Council, two to DTC, two to Indian Railways, one to the Archaeological Survey of India, one to the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation and eight to the Delhi Government.

End-user perspective

Ms. Agarwal said construction work on all the sites is expected to be completed by this year-end. A key feature of the project, she said, was that it would also help in procuring end-user perspective on the plans while they are being implemented to ensure that there are no mistakes and costly rectification at a later stage is not required.

Of the 20 sites and services, she said, while the plans of all but two had been finalised, work had also started on six of the projects. These include the 11 Murti tourist area on Mother Teresa Crescent and Janpath Municipal Market where the streets and the sidewalks would be aligned to provide barrier-free movement. “Likewise, the whole of Connaught Place and Palika Bazar is being made barrier-free,” Ms. Agarwal said.

The other four projects on which work has begun are the DTC bus queue shelters and the procurement of low-floor buses, and making of New Delhi railway station barrier-free along with the creation of facilities to provide for easy access to railway coaches.

The other places and services that would be made accessible to all under the project are Hanuman Mandir Complex, Talkatora Garden, Nehru Garden, the road from Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to Gole Dak Khana, Senior Secondary Govt. Girls School (No. 1), Tagore Garden, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, Garden of Five Senses, PVR Naraina, Safdarjung Tomb, CGHS Dispensary at South Avenue, Sarai Kale Khan Bus Terminus, Indraprastha Stadium and Indian Airlines Reservation Office at Safdarjung Airport. A very important aspect of the project is that it would make all these services and places accessible in a time-bound manner.

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