Making Public Transport Accessible To All! Chennai Metro Stations To Be Made Disabled-Friendly By December 3

India is a country that has a long way to go in terms of making its infrastructure accessible to all. Several activists and specially-abled people have repeatedly pointed out the need for infrastructure that accommodates everyone, including people with disabilities, the elderly, children, pregnant women, people with a medical conditions and so on.

At such a point time, the Chennai Metro Officials have announced that all 40 active metro stations would be retrofitted for universal accessibility by December 3. The decision has been received with equal amounts of praise and criticism from the people.

Bringing In Inclusivity

The accessibility project at the Chennai Metro is expected to be completed by December 3, which is marked as the International Day of Disabled Persons. As a part of this decision, members of various organisations, including the Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), conducted inspections at the Ekkattuthangal Metro station. After this, they presented suggested changes for the city to comply with in order to achieve universal accessibility.

A member from the DRA, Sudha Ramamoorthy, said "Earlier, there were separate ticket counters for disabled persons, but most were unmanned. Now, there are multi-level ticket counters. We have asked for them to be made bigger."

A few other changes include accessible toilets, lifts, flooring, and so on. These were concerns previously brought in by many disabled people, and these concerns would be looked into while making the stations accessible.

However, she added that the tactile tiles, to assist the visually impaired are not a part of the harmonised guidelines.

A report by the New Indian Express quoted a few other DRA members claiming that the process is taking a lot longer than expected despite the metro officials having promised to hold the meeting within a week. However, it is still expected to be completed by December 3, after which the Chennai metro will be a service accessible to all.

Petitions And Demands Later

Earlier this year, a disability rights activist had filed a public-interest petition seeking directions to make Chennai Metro disabled-friendly. The activist, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, was able to shed light on the state of affairs and the inaccessiblity of the public transport system.

Vaishnavi had also tweeted a video showing a disabled woman struggling to go up the inclined ramp. After the video, she released a series of tweets describing how the ramps and other infrastructure at the metro stations were not disable-friendly and were in clear violation of the rules set by the central government.

Today after 1.5 years sitting on 32 stations' access audit reports @cmrlofficial had the temerity to inform Madras High Court that current construction is as per rules.
Indian rules on ramp design haven't changed in substance > 1998. Yet CMRL manages this in Central Square, 2022 pic.twitter.com/bbMWFrEQCl

— Vaishnavi Jayakumar (@vjayakumar) June 15, 2022

Among the many problems she pointed out were the lack of tactile maps for blind people, no tactile guiding paths in the restrooms, and the polished granites that would be slippery for wheelchair and crutch users.

@cmrlofficial
You keep your ramp locked
You leave a gap between train & platfor
keys to the locked ramp was found only after 45 minutes of me reaching nandanam CMRL station
We always have to be in fear of our wheels getting stuck between train & platform
Is this accessibility? https://t.co/2sFKyx0mEC

— Rajiv Rajan (@RajivSpeaks) June 16, 2022

Back then, the Chennai Metro had responded to the Madras High Court that they would retrofit all stations to make them disabled-friendly within a period of six weeks.

Also Read: My Story: 'Accept Your Disability The Way It Is'