A Slow Journey To Inclusivity: Understanding accessibility in India and its complex journey to create an enabled environment

by Swapna Menon

Swapna Menon is a Mumbai based freelance feature writer and architect, with published architectural and entrepreneurship stories. She loves extending her time and capacity to inclusion facilitation in diverse groups, and is inspired to raise awareness and action for accessibility needs within her community in India.

The latest Indian National Census estimates more than 26.8 million Indians live with disabilities, that’s roughly 2.2% of its population.[1] The World Health Organisation states that 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability. Indian disability activists argue that the actual count of India’s population living with disability lies somewhere between these two estimates. They reiterate that official numbers are grossly under reported and that Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) remain largely an invisible, unheard minority in their country.

Why does India, the fifth largest economy in the world, still struggle to provide visibility and the most basic access features to its citizens with disabilities? To grasp these challenges in the Indian context, it is essential to revisit the timeline of economic progress and understand the complexities in creating an accessible environment, in the most populous democracy of the world.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF INDIA’S DEVELOPMENT PLANS AND THE EXCLUSION OF PwD’S FROM IT

1947

British India was split into the independent sovereign states of India and Pakistan. A systemically deindustrialized young nation found itself hopelessly poor and in dire need of reinventing its economic map.

1951

India’s economic development plan was based on a broadly socialist concept of centralized and integrated national economic programs called The Five-Year plans (FYPs). The main focus of these programs were development models for Poverty Eradication, Rapid Industrialization, Infrastructure and Agriculture. On the socio-development front, the focus largely remained on Education and Population Control and providing Social Justice mainly to those discriminated by Caste and Gender. This continued to be the driving vocabulary in the 12 FYPs that were implemented, until India’s Planning Commission was dissolved in 2015. The FYPs were concluded in 2017, and a switch made to 3-year Action Plans.

1974

A Minimum Needs Programme (MNP) was introduced as part of the fifth FYP with an objective to improve general living standards for Indian citizens. People with disabilities remained an invisible part of this population, for almost 3 decades more, as they were not accounted for in the National Population Census until 2001.[2]

Thus, roughly 26.8 million people with disabilities were clearly marginalized, while the rest of the country slowly pivoted towards economic and social development.

Attitude to Accessibility: A retrospective Narrative

1991

Economic liberalization was first introduced, and the country moved from an inward-looking socialist model of self-reliance to a more outward-looking, free-market economy. It marked India’s first steps to globalization and brought with it a broader context of living and making sense of the world.

Historically, the perception of people with disabilities in India, has been apathetic or condescending. Disability stigma prevails to the present day and at its worst, it has been violently discriminatory and hateful.[3] This sparked the evolution of the Disability Rights Movement in India (DRM) about four decades ago.

1995

The Persons with Disability Act (PDA), India’s first ever Legislation addressing PwDs was passed, triggered by a series of petitions and protests by non-governmental agencies that were a part of the DRM.

7 different disabilities like 'blindness' to 'mental illness' were vaguely defined in the PDA. The provisions included a 3% reservation for government jobs and a general prescription to make 'public buildings and transport accessible'.

1998

As an affirmative step 'to create a barrier free environment for persons with disabilities', The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) published its first set of guidelines. Some of the international references used to outline and enumerate the CPWD guidelines were The Code of

Practice - British Standard Institution BS 5810: 1979 and the Australian Standard Code of Practice for Design Rules for Access by the Disabled 1428 – 1977, published by Standards Association of Australia. CLICK HERE to download guidelines.

The PDA directed authorities to implement measures only 'within the limits of their economic capacity and development'. This provided a convenient loophole, often exploited for the non-implementation of accessibility regulations.

2007

Significantly, India joined the ranks of countries that signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (UNCRPD). This brought fresh vigor to reiterate the concept of a barrier free India.

On ground however, attempts for the development of an accessible built environment, were usually disrupted by the signature Jugaads (frugal hacks) of aggressive urbanization. To this day, both densely populated big cities and small towns alike, continue to battle issues of mismanaged development. Execution of projects with due compliance was hardly the norm.

The World Bank flagged this aptly in a feature report, 'Overlapping institutions across three tiers of government diffuses accountability across agencies, parastatal bodies and elected governments. This situation undermines India's robust democracy, clouds issues of responsibility, and blocks the development of coherent regulatory frameworks and sustainable service delivery models'. [4]

2012

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment created a separate department to deal with Disability Affairs called the Department of empowerment of persons with disabilities (DEPwD)[5]

One of the earliest missions of the department was the Unique Disability ID project (UDID), that aimed at encouraging transparency, efficiency and ease of not only delivering government benefits to a person with disabilities, but to also ensure uniformity.

2014

The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) released an updated handbook of guidelines on barrier free accessibility in the built environment. The CPWD detailed in this handbook, 'Practical low cost solutions to retro-fitting existing buildings, as well as methods used to assess the suitability of an existing building to improve access for disabled people.' CLICK HERE to access Handbook.

By this time, an adequately globalized India, grappled with problems typical of a country on the fast track to development. Two decades of a liberalized economy accentuated the problems of its built environment - lack of space, intense rural to urban economic migration and the need for vertical development.

2015

The Access India Campaign (AIC) was launched, within the framework of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. The target was to make at least 50% of government buildings accessible in each of its

29 state capitals and the city of New Delhi, the national capital. The AIC detailed that 'Measures should be undertaken to eliminate obstacles and barriers to indoor and outdoor facilities including schools, medical facilities, and workplaces. These would include not only buildings, but also footpaths, curb cuts, and obstacles that block the flow of pedestrian traffic.'

However, subsequent audits found that only 3% of India’s buildings had been effectively retrofitted.[6]

Ar. Tejaswini Pandit, of Hiten Sethi Architects (HSA), shares her experience in dealing with various scaled projects, 'Larger projects and green certification projects are taking accessibility as a norm, but medium to small scaled projects are still a long way from adopting these practices. Private developers in particular, tend to expect loopholes from consultants to save on every inch of space.'

While incorporating CPWD guidelines and National Building Code (NBC) has become the norm in design, proper interpretation and execution has not. Sensitization to the importance of accessibility and the gaps in technical knowhow continued to hamper the development of an enabled environment.

Ar. Darius Choksi, Director at CCBA Designs explains some of the practical issues, 'There are smart city standards that mandate tactile flooring in pavements. However, manholes, level changes, direction changes are usually not properly factored. The resulting number of bends or gaps post execution render them absolutely impractical. Even the mason laying the tiles or the contractor executing it, are uneducated and clueless about its actual purpose. It’s just a rule to be followed.'

Clearly a stronger mandate and accountability were still missing to enforce accessibility norms.

Where there’s a lack of compassion, Enable and Enforce

2016

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD) was passed by the government of India. An important modification of the Act, was expanding the list of recognized disabilities from 7 to 21.

A third and updated revision of the national building codes – NBC 2016 was released that year.[7] https://bis.gov.in/index.php/ standards/technical-department/ national-building-code/

Most importantly, RPwD mandated accountability on the part of organizations to make adequate accommodations without infringing on the PwD’s 'right to equality'.

2021

On 2nd March, at the cusp of a second deadly wave of Covid-19 that gripped the nation, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) launched a crowd sourcing mobile application called Accessible India. The most significant module included in the app is a handbook titled 'Access: the photo diges'[8] that details 10 fundamental access criteria to be adopted in the built environment. These 10 modules will be considered mandatory and non-compliance could now be punishable under the legislative cover provided by relevant sections (sections 40-46) in the RPwD Act of 2016.

It was under the purview of DEPwD that the Access India campaign was launched in 2015.

Almost 6 ineffectual years since then, the Joint Secretary of the Department, summarizes some of the practical difficulties faced in rolling out the campaign, as 'inappropriate retrofitting of public buildings, gaps in the level of understanding and a need for the proper sensitization of authorities.'

The 'Accessible India' app hopes to effectively identify physical and procedural gaps and facilitate remedial action by concerned authorities.

Ravindra Singh, a PwD and co-founder, CEO of myUDAAN, a social-impact driven technology start-up, shares his perspective. (myUDAAN literally translates as 'my flight')

'Presently, the abysmal nature of our accessible infrastructure is reflected in as basic a facility as a public toilet. I was shocked to see a Person with Disabilities Department placed on the second floor with no lift and ramps. In another instance, when I visited one of the government offices listed in the Accessible India Campaign, that was audited and advised to make necessary changes in the past, the place was still not accessible. The success and outcome of the campaign would depend on implementation, regular monitoring, and the level of engagement from all stakeholders.'

As inadequacies within the built up environment widened, a parallel ecosystem of NGOs, and entrepreneurs, some from within the PwD community like Svayam[9] and start ups like MyUdaan[10] , have emerged to fill in those gaps. Svayam, helps both government agencies and corporates to adopt accessibility measures as a non negotiable component in their infrastructure by providing access audits, capacity building and access consultancy services. The myUDAAN App provides on-demand Mobility Assistants, and checks accessible locations for convenient mobility.

There is also increasing awareness and emphasis on inclusive education both within the mainstream education system as well as design education.[11] Hopefully, this elevates the inclusivity environment for persons with disabilities in the country, to rise above its historically welfare bubble of pity and sympathy to an empowered one.

A POST-COVID FUTURE FOR ACCESSIBILITY IN INDIA

The pandemic, has tipped the balance against PwDs, already struggling for basic equities in India. Vulnerabilities in healthcare and crisis management procedures were brazenly exposed and shown to be ill equipped to deal with their needs.[12] However, with these challenges, an opportunity also presents itself. For example, rebuilding a post-Covid infrastructure for better healthcare in terms of new medical facilities, hospitals as well as mobility projects for better connectivity, presents a great opportunity to embrace universal design.

The pandemic that has forced the world to conceive a new normal and put new systems in place, could provide a fresh page to rewrite India’s slow turning story of inclusivity. With legislation in place, enforced accountability and a clearer mandate, the dawn of universal inclusivity seems to be on the horizon for an Enabled India.

[1] http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_ reports/Disabled_persons_in_India_2016.pdf

[2] https://niti.gov.in/planningcommission.gov.in/docs/ plans/planrel/fiveyr/7th/vol2/7v2ch19.html

[3] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/crimesagainst-persons-with-disabilities-rights-organisations-wantncrb-to-maintain-data/article33635243.ece

[4] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/ feature/2011/09/22/india-urbanization

[5] http://www.swavlambancard.gov.in/cms/aboutdepartment-of-empowerment-of-persons-with-disabilities

[6] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/ politics-and-nation/only-3-per-cent-of-buildings-accessiblefor-disabled/articleshow/63104371.cms

[7] https://ncpedp.org/documents/NBCReview%20Report.pdf

[8] http://disabilityaffairs.gov.in/content/upload/ uploadfiles/files/Dictionary%20on%20Accessibility.pdf

[9] https://www.thebetterindia.com/192543/delhiqutub-minar-taj-mahal-tourism-facilities-jindal-accessible-tourism-india/

[10] https://myudaanstore.com/assistance-accessibility/

[11] https://www.hindustantimes.com/pune-news/ inclusive-architecture-is-a-paradigm-shift-sayskavita-murugkar/story-lF8EArK0g9HqKa5rQXYnNN.html

[12] https://www.ncpedp.org/sites/all/themes/marinelli/ documents/Report-locked_down_left_behind.pdf