PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND RIGHT TO ACCESSIBILITY

By PROF. ATANU GHOSH Assistant Professor, Dept. of Commerce New Alipore College Kolkata atanugosh@yahoo.co.in

And
Ms. PIULI GHOSH Field worker, IIT, Kharagpur, West Bengal. Piuli4096@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and possible benefit of some system. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities or special needs and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology. Accessibility is strongly related to universal design when the approach involves "direct access". This is about making things accessible to all people (in spite of someone disability). An alternative is to provide "indirect access" by having the entity support the use of a person's assistive technology to achieve access).The term "accessibility" is also used in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This term is also used in universal design.1 According to a version of men with disabilities from Congo he says I am 35 years old now and have never tasted all these facilities I am reading in the Standard Rules. They are a dream! We dont have any rights other that the right of receiving pity words, which we dont need! We cannot make any change to our rights when we are still in the dust asking for cents in the streets, but by improving ourselves through education. There is no encouragement from the government or society. (Source: DAA 2003).this prove the lot and condition of disable people in the world. But according to many Americans disability is a barrier. It prevents them from communicating with the world or severely limits their choices. These barriers may are, such as lack of ramped entrances for people who use wheelchairs, lack of interpreters or captioning for people with hearing impairments, or lack of Braille or taped copies of printed materials for people who have visual impairments etc. Other barriers-frequently less obvious but can be even more limiting to the efforts on the part of people with disabilities to live independently. They are even caused by people's misunderstandings and prejudices about disability. These barriers result in low expectations about things people with disabilities can achieve. People with disabilities not only have to deal with the effects of their disabling conditions, but they also have to deal with both physical and attitudinal barriers. INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility

By resolution 31/123 adopted on year 1981 International Year of Persons with disabilities, with the theme 'full participation The purpose of the World Programme of Action concerning Persons with disabilities is to promote effective measures for prevention of disability, rehabilitation and the realization of the goals of "full participation" of persons with disabilities in social life and development, and of "equality". This means opportunities equal to those of the whole population and an equal share in the improvement in living conditions resulting from social and economic development. This concept is applicable for all countries inspite of their economic conditions.
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The purpose and content of the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (20 DECEMBER 1993) is to protect the rights of persons with disabilities. States should recognize the overall importance of accessibility in the process of the equalization of opportunities in all spheres of society. For persons with disabilities of any kind, States should make some provision so that the persons with disabilities can also lead a normal life. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. The Convention entered into force on 3rd May 2008. The Convention marks a "paradigm shift" in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as "objects" of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free, and informed consent as well as being active members of society. It is a law of our country now as India has ratified the act. India is legally bound by the Convention and has to implement it. Article 9 and 21states the right to accessibility for the persons with disabilities. NATIONAL CONVENTION The article 14 and 21 of Indian constitution justifies the right of persons with disabilities and their freedom of movement. The Persons with Disabilities (equal opportunities, protection of rights and full participation) Act, 1995 chapter v and vii states the importance of accessibility. The Act states that it is the responsibility of the government to provide a barrier free environment for the persons with disabilities. State should made infrastructure for travelling of persons with disabilities.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/transportforyou/access/

IMPLEMENTATION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ACT Roads are quite unsafe for people with disability in the country. There are hardly any footprints in the country. This is problematic for pedestrians in general, and evens more for persons with disabilities. Crossing a road is next to impossible for people with visual disabilities. There are also difficulties faced by people with hearing disabilities and other disabilities in walking, crossing or driving on the roads. Most of the subways, foot over bridges etc remain inaccessible for people with disabilities. It talks of audio signals for visually impaired people at the crossings . The ticket counters the stalls, toilets etc, all are uniformly disabled unfriendly .In the name of a ramp, there is a slope which is used for pushing luggage trolleys. Wheelchairs come for a price are nor easily available. Toilets not all are accessible, perhaps one in the entire station would be disabled friendly and one would have to go to that a particular platform to use that toilet. The disabled friendly coaches are not reserved so, maximum time occupied by people without disabilities. It is indeed appreciable that the national Urban Housing and Habitat Policy, 2007, underline the needs for housing among economically weaker section and persons with disabilities. However there is no information regarding the activities programmes taken by the ministry to promote accessible. Lack of accessible housing is a major concern for people with disabilities. In disability Act 1995 it is mandate to provide of land at concessional rates to disable people. However it is also not implemented and no report on this concern but there some court cases on this issue but those cases also maximum go unreported.3 CONCLUSION The freedom of movement is a basic and an important right for everyone. But the freedom of movement of people with disability gets curtailed due to their barrier to movement. It is duty of government to create a barrier free environment for the persons with disabilities. Arrangement should be made to allow ramps to pass through the roads and buildings. Provisions of illuminated signals etc should be given so that hearing impaired can travel through this place. Even lift should be centrally placed so it helps blind people to travel. The stairs should have handle to help physically challenged people to climb. All the necessary arrangement needed for persons with travel should be made by government so that he can lead live a normal life. Many important
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http://www.disabilityindia.org/pils.cfm

judgments were also given in these cases but neither of those judgments was implemented properly.

REFERENCES
Books and journals Diversity and Equal Opportunity Centre, (February 2009 )( Employment of Person with disability in India Base Line Report , , National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People , pg 10,11 Patricia Thornton and Neil Lunt, (1994) Employment for Disabled People social obligation or individual Responsibility, European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research DEOC), 2009 Accessibility to Built Environment and Means of Transport for People with Disabilities in India, pg 21,22,26,27,32 The constitution of India, Bare Act pg 4, 7, Michael Ashley Steint,2007, Disability Human Rights, Vol. 95:75 Nilika Mehrotra, 2005, Disability Rights Movements in India: Politics and Practice, vol xlvi no 6 Gagandeep Kaur Walia , Disability South Asia Network for Chronic Disease pg 3

WEBSITES
http://www.accessingsafety.org/index.php/main/main_menu/understanding_disability/a_new_defin ition/world_health_organization_s_definition_of_disability accessed on 14th may http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ +/www.direct.gov.uk/en/disabledpeople/rightsandobligations/disabilityrights/dg_4001069 accessed on 1st may http://www.disabilityindia.org/pwdacts.cfm accessed on 2nd may http://www.disabilityindia.com/html/facts.html accessed on 2nd may http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility accessed on 3rd may http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5350 accessed on 3rd may http://www.dft.gov.uk/transportforyou/access/ accessed on 4th may http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/36/a36r077.htm accessed on 1st may