Kilambakkam bus terminus design not too friendly for people with disabilities

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:

The Rs 393.74 crore Kilambakkam bus terminus catering to south-bound buses may have quality ambience but the design is flawed when it comes to accessibility for persons with disabilities as per the Harmonised Guidelines standard required by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, according to an access audit carried out on the bus terminus on Friday.

The joint inspection was conducted by the Access Audit Team with the officials of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which built the bus terminus and the assistant director of the Directorate for Welfare of the Differently Abled along with the representatives from the Organisations for Persons with Disabilities and Empanelled agency.

The audit team, comprising users with different disabilities, found multiple errors in the bus terminus design - including continuity and reach of the tactile path for visually impaired passengers, long, unsheltered ramps without landings and toilets which do not allow bilateral transfer for wheelchair users.

"A ramp should have an incline not steeper than 1:12 gradient. Secondly when the ramp is longer than nine metres, it should have a landing point as it would be easier for the wheelchair to move. But the audit found that at some places, the ramp is 25 metres long but it has only one landing point. This would make the movement of wheel chairs difficult, said Gnana Bharathi, president of Spinal Injured Persons Association (SIIA), who was part of team that carried out the audit.

Similarly, it was found that the tactile path is designed in such a way that it grants limited access to blind persons. It just grants them access to the terminus and stops short at the entrance to the bus fingers. They don't get access to features like shopping or access to the food joints.

"On the first floor, where there are other amenities like dormitories, there is no tactile guidance," said Sudha Ramamoorthy, member, Disability Rights Alliance. She also bemoans the usage of the deadly polished granite floor which proved too slippery for crutch users on the team who had to sit down exhausted very soon.
The ticketing counter design could be made dual height so that it is accessible to all, including persons of short stature as has been recommended for the Chennai Metro retrofits. This does away with the Railway phenomenon of a separate counter for disabled passengers that is always locked.

Disability rights activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar was upset that no arrangements had been made for level boarding of passengers with locomotor disabilities at the bus bays, contrary to the Madras High Court judgement in June 2023 which held "bus stops should be scientifically designed to suit the requirements of the differently-abled and henceforth, any development or reconstruction or repairing or improvement in any of the bus stops should include and focus in making it differently-abled friendly, with due  cility for the wheel chair to go into the low floor bus, directly from the platform;"

CMDA member secretary Anshul Mishra said that nine recommendations were put forth after the Access Audit team. "These are welcome suggestions. Most of these are doable and we will ensure that Kilambakkam bus terminus is one of the most disabled friendly bus terminus across India," he told The New Indian Express.