Panaji, Sep 15 (TOI): The directorate of social welfare on Monday in a reply before the Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) stated that 45 public buildings in the state are inaccessible to persons with physical disabilities. The list which includes the municipal councils of Margao, Sanguem, Valpoi and the newly-renovated council building at Mapusa, ironically also includes the departments of town and country planning and the human rights commission- where the complaint was filed in the first place.
The commission's inspection of 21 government departments and public buildings within Panaji contested some of the claims in the reply filed by the directorate of social welfare including that of its own department being accessible. The directorate of social welfare, the inspection report stated, doesn't have reserved parking in its premises for persons with disabilities. "Ramp, elevators and toilets for disabled persons are not available," said the report.
It isn't only offices housed in old and heritage buildings but even newly-constructed buildings that are apathetic to their needs. At the building of the directorate of art and culture, Sanskruti Bhavan, Patto, the commission found that the ramp built granted access to the library on the first floor but no access to the ground floor office of the directorate of art and culture. Two elevators are available to access the remaining five floors only from the central library office. Only one toilet for differently-abled persons was found to be available on the first floor (central library).
It was orthopedically challenged government servant Vishant Nagvekar, working as a statistical assistant at the directorate of craftsmen training on the third floor of Shram Shakti Bhavan at Patto, who filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission regarding difficulty in accessing the building.
The building that houses half a dozen government offices including the office of commissioner, labour & employment, office of the state registrar cum head of notary services, directorate of tribal welfare, Goa rehabilitation board, has a lift and Nagvekar faces problems not so much in getting to the third floor but being able to enter the building itself.
"The reserved parking for persons with disabilities is put up at the entrance gate and the accessibility—ramp is constructed behind the building. This act of engineering is shameful and inhuman and certainly violates human rights," he wrote in his letter to the commission in April this year, following which Disability Rights Association of Goa was made an intervener in the case, bringing other such inaccessible public buildings into the picture.
In its reply on Monday, the directorate of social welfare stated that since it was informed that the possession of the building is with the executive engineer WD 1, PWD, Nagvekar's complaint was forwarded to the PWD, stating that action is required from their end.
The commission, in its inspection report, also pointed out to the ramp built at the rear side of the building, the access to which is blocked by two and four-wheelers parked in a hazardous manner. The one toilet for differently-abled persons available behind the building was found "neglected, not in use with scrap material dumped inside and the access blocked by parked two-wheelers", it stated.
Nagvekar's advocate Satish Sonak attributed the poor access to the government's insensitivity and lack of will. The next hearing is scheduled for October 20.