Shouldn’t the wheelchair be for all those who need it or should it be for only privileged few?

One should accompany a physically challenged – that is, disabled – and an elderly person, and notice the hurdles he or she faces in doing things the young and fit elderly do? For instance, like entering a building or even a shop? The premises could be either government or privately owned, but do not have a ramp to use wheelchair.

You should watch the persisting travails of the disabled despite the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 aims at equal rights and opportunities for them; the absence of facilities for the disabled is a discrimination. Their concerns do not figure in the priorities of those who should be enabling the comfort of the disabled. It does not end with assigning quotas for jobs or college admissions.

Inadequate numbers at airports

In recent times, the absence or inadequate numbers of wheelchairs at airports have been in the news, and new dimensions have emerged. Those who shouldn’t be using them have been seeking them out to beat queues and avoid long trudges to the security gates. That is a callous attitude towards the elderly and challenged persons who also need to travel.

My understanding is that the authorities heed the complaints about the wheelchairs because it is a class thing. The air travellers are more privileged than the train users, for their requirements are unmet. Or even bus users. A person wanting fresh air cannot even hope to be trundled along because villages, towns, cities, and metropolises woefully lack even footpaths.

Absence of footpaths

Footpaths are either not in proper repair or even non-existent. They are the least of the priorities of habitat managers at all levels, from the gram panchayats to the state governments. A person with a walking stick cannot get onto a footpath; they are, if there are, of a standard, friendly height. These uneven heights are a huge impediment.

Let me hark back a bit. In the early 2000s, ramps were erected in Maharashtra’s administrative headquarters, the secretariat – Mantralaya in Mumbai. The ramp went gently up the entire corridor to the elevator because the then wheelchair-bound finance minister Jayant Patil could access it. He had suffered multiple fractures on his lower limbs in a car accident. Before that, there was never a ramp.

Soon thereafter, when a legislative session was scheduled, a ramp was built so that he could negotiate his way through to his front seat. In a conversation after that, when the State budget was being drafted, he agreed on my persuasion to make a provision for making at least public buildings accessible. The figure mentioned was Rs 2 crores, and it was too late then to make an outlay to buttress a policy choice favouring the disabled. The state, as the country is, is back to neglecting the issue.

Is it a ‘class’ thing?

The “class thing” was mentioned earlier in this article, and here is the elaboration. How often do we see a wheelchair in a railway station? If there is one, it is in the control of the porter, who would opt for the opportunity to charge what he chooses to. The porter would know where it is even in big terminals. But the user who entirely depends on wheel wheelchair needs to be physically lifted and placed inside the compartment. Then he’s on his own.

The disabled can be taken right to their seat in an aircraft. An additional person comes to aid his colleague to push the passenger up the ramp, even as the first fellow pulls it up if the airport is not using an aerobridge. There is this discrimination, for the bus or train user cannot expect this. Not even a wheelchair. Which is quite unfortunate. But it ought not to be the case.

Here is another example. In Nashik city, where I live, the outsourced, wet lease, actually, municipal intra-city buses thoughtfully had a space reserved for a wheelchair. Now, most buses don’t. However, one question lingers: how would a disabled person even have his wheelchair moved up the three-four steps, because the buses are not low-floored?

A friend, however, asked me the other day why I worry about the disabled alone when most train users can’t even find a seat. Shouldn’t, however, those who get a seat be able to reach it? The Bombay High Court is hearing a case about airlines and wheelchairs. As it is observed, nobody should suffer. I contend that nobody who is disabled or elderly should suffer regardless of whether they are a flyer or not.