Accessibility India Campaign Unfolding the package

48 cities out of 200 cities

for all 676 districts and for
all the 6,38,000 villages will
be made accessible under
AIC

Prepared by

Accessible India Campaign

- An Analyses

An Introduction
-

A flagship programme (Nation-Wide) of Government of India

To achieve Universal Accessibility
Synchronizing with the Incheon Strategy 3A, 3B & 3C Increasing accessibility to
physical environment, public transportation & Information & Communication
services

Approach of this analysis:

This report is divided into 3 chapters. Under each chapter we analyze the commitment
under this campaign towards built environment, public transportation and Information
and communication.
The chapters will begin with a table showing the commitments under the specific
chapter head, the target that was proposed to be achieved and the time line committed
for.
The table will be followed by some clarifications in the form of a question and answer.
References are provided wherever appropriate.

Prepared by

Chapter I
Physical Environment
Table 1: showing Objects, targets & Time Line
Objective
Targets
Activity
Enhancing
50 Government
Audit and making
proportion of
buildings in 26 cities accessible
accessible public
buildings
25 Government
Audit and making
buildings in another accessible
22 cities
50% of all
Fully accessible
Government
buildings in National
capital
50% of all
Fully accessible
Government
buildings in 10 cities
in all states
Source: http://disabilityaffairs.gov.in/content/accessible_india.php

Time Line
July 2016

July 2016
July 2019

July 2022

Table 2 : Mapping cities to States

Cities Mentioned in States
AIC
Bengaluru

Karnataka

Chennai

Tamil Nadu

Coimbatore

Tamil Nadu

Delhi

Delhi

Hyderabad

Andhra

Units that will be made Coverage city

accessible
to
total
number
of
districts
50 Most imp Gov. 1:30
(240
Building
towns &29406
villages)
50 Most imp Gov. 2:32 (31 cities
Building
&
15400
50 Most imp Gov. villages)
Building
50 Most imp Gov. 1:11
Building
50 Most imp Gov. 2:23(31cities &
Building
26613 villages)
Prepared by

Vishakapatnam

Andhra

Kolkata

West Bengal

Mumbai

Maharashtra

Pune

Maharashtra

Nagpur

Maharashtra

Nashik

Maharashtra

Ahmadabad

Gujarat

Vadodara

Gujarat

Surat

Gujarat

Gndhinagar

Gujarat

Bhopal

Kanpur

Madhya
Pradesh
Madhya
Pradesh
UP

Luknow

UP

Jhansi

UP

Varanasi

UP

Jaipur

Rajasthan

Patna

Bihar

50 Most
Building

imp

Raipur

Chhathisgarh

50 Most
Building

imp

Gurgaon

Haryana

50

imp

Indore

50 Most
Building
50 Most
Building

imp

Gov.

imp

Gov. 1:19 (29 cities

&37,945
villages)
Gov. 4:35 (24 cities
&
44,198
Gov. villages)

50 Most imp
Building
50 Most imp
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
25
most
important
Government Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
25
most
important
Government Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
25
most
important
Government Building
25
most
important
Government Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building

Most

4:33 (22 cities

&18,539
villages)

2:48 (33 cities

&51541)
4:70 (65 cities
&
97942
villages)

1:32 (16 cities

&
44672
villages)
Gov. 1:38 (27 cities
&
44,874
villages)
Gov. 1:27 (12 cities
&
19744
villages)
Gov. 2:19 (18 cities
Prepared by

Faridabad

Haryana

Srinagar

Jammu
Kashmir
Thiruvananthapuram Kerala

Building
25
most
important
Government Building
& 50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building
50 Most imp Gov.
Building

&
6764
villages)
1:22 (3 cities
&6652 villages)
1: 14 (7 cities
&1453 villages)
1:30 (11 cities
&
47529
villages)
Ut with 23
villages
1:32 (27 cities
&25590
villages)
1:19 (28 cities
&5485 mapped
villages)
Ut with 2
divisions
1:2 (with 20
cities)
UT

Bhubneshwar

Odisha

Chandigarh

UT

Guwahati

Assam

Itanagar

Arunachal
Pradesh

25
most
important
Government Building

Portblair

Andaman

Panaji

Goa

Daman

UT

Shimla
Ranchi

Himachal
Pradesh
Jharkand

Kavaratti

Lakshdweep

Imphal

Manipur

Shillong

Meghalaya

Aizawl

Mizoram

Kohima

Nagaland

Pondicherry

Pondicherry

Gangtok

Sikkim

25
most
important
Government Building
25
most
important
Government Building
25
most
important
Government Building
25
most
important 1:12
Government Building
25
most
important 1:22 (11 cities
Government Building
&
32623
villages)
25
most
important This island has
Government Building
10 panchayats
25
most
important 1:9
(2639
Government Building
villages)
25
most
important 1:11 (21 cities
Government Building
&6861 villages)
25
most
important 1:8 ( 23 towns
Government Building
& 830 villages)
25
most
important 1:8 (27 towns
Government Building
&
1317
villages)
25
most
important 1: 4units (UT)
Government Building
25
most
important 1:4 (16 cities &

50 Most
Building
50 Most
Building

imp

Gov.

imp

Gov.

Prepared by

Agartala
Dehradun
Silvassa
Ludhiana

Government Building
25
most
important
Government Building
25
most
important
Government Building

460 villages)
Tripura
1:4 (20 cities &
858 villages)
Uttarkhand
1: 10 (7 cities
&16826
villages)
Dadra
& 25
most
important UT
Nagar Haveli Government Building
Punjab
25
most
important 1:22 (17 cities
Government Building
&
12673
villages

Source: the data source is from census India, Wikipedia and maps of India.

Clarifications:
1. How many cities are covered compared to total cities?
48 cities out of 200 cities in the country are covered.
2. What is the rationale for choosing these cities?
The website of the department for the empowerment of persons with disabilities,
MSJE,( http://disabilityaffairs.gov.in/content/index.php), the strategy paper do not
contain any details on the rationale for the selection of these cities. However upon
analysis, it was found that these cities either fall under the category of Mega Cities
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_India_by_population) or Million plus
Cities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_India_by_population)
3. Do they cover the entire public buildings in these chosen cities?
No. They cover 50 important Government buildings in 26 cities (refer Table 2
above) & 25 important Government buildings in the remaining cities chosen (refer
Table 2 Above). There is no mention of other public buildings.
4. What are important government buildings?
(http://disabilityaffairs.gov.in/content/accessible_india.php) This link will guide one to
know the list of buildings chosen. To take an example, for Chennai the chosen
buildings are the collectorate, Agricultural Department, Museum and few sub-urban
railway stations and the recently built MRTS.
5. Is there any time line provided for other cities?
By 2022 another 10 cities, which do not form part of the above mentioned cities will
be covered. But no mention could be found for ensuring accessibility to public
building in all the other cities in the country.
Prepared by

6. How many districts are covered compared to the total districts?

48
cities
in
48
districts
out
of
the
total
676
districts
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_in_India) are covered in this campaign
7. Is there any state not covered? Name it?
No.
8. What is the time line to cover the cities mentioned?
The number of government buildings mentioned above will be made fully accessible
by July 2016. The additional 10 cities will be covered by 2022. There is no
commitment that could be culled out for the rest of India.
9. Are villages part of this campaign?
No. No mention of buildings at the sub district levels could be found.
10. How many villages are there in India?
As
per
census
2001
there
are
6,38,000
villages
in
India.(
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=number+of+villages+in+India&ie=utf-8&oe=utf8&gws_rd=cr&ei=is97VuiAOI3guQTCnaSIBQ)
11. What is the population of persons with disabilities in villages?
1,86,31,921 persons with disabilities live in rural areas. This works out to 69.5 % of
the total population of persons with disabilities.
12. How are other flagship programmes implemented?
Different flagship programmes of the Union Government are implemented
differently. All of them are implemented in partnership with the state Governments
either with or without States financial contribution. Very few programmes are
implemented in a phased manner. But all programmes that aim at protecting
fundamental rights are implemented across the country. For example Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan, ICDS, MGNREGS, Housing (IAY), WASH etc,.
13. Is Access a right of an individual?
Yes. Access is a right for every citizen in the country and ensuring access (i.e)
providing accessibility is the duty of the country. This will ensure realization of rights
such as equality and non-discrimination, equality of opportunities, right to
information and communication, choice of employment, equal recognition before
Prepared by

law, right to life with dignity and so on and so forth. Therefore, accessibility is crucial
for all population irrespective of their place of residence or any other human
diversity.
14. Which is the responsible department / Ministry?
Department for the empowerment of persons with disabilities, MSJE.
15. Should it really be the responsibility of MSJE?
It should not. This scheme has to be ideally be recognized as a cross cutting
programme. If one looks at the XII Plan commitments of the Union Government
provision of accessibility has been committed by almost all departments & Ministry.
So the responsibility and funding should be from across Ministries and has to be a
component of the existing programmes of the Ministries and cannot be from the
specific pool as this would amount to breach of the mandate of Article 4 of CRPD.
The reason being, there is a pre-existing legal mandate and cannot be seen just as a
programme or a campaign. Provision of accessibility should be an ongoing agenda.
16. Details of Funding?
No clarity. It looks like the resources for allocation to SIPDA and few programmes
of urban development such as HRIDAY, smart cities will be used for this.

Prepared by

Chapter 2
Transportation
Table 3 showing Objects, targets & Time Line
Objects
Targets
Activity
Enhancing
All International
Conducting accessibility
proportion of
Airports
audit of all the
accessible
international airports
airports
and converting them
into fully accessible
international airports
All domestic
Conducting accessibility
airports
audit of all domestic
airports and converting
them into fully
accessible international
airports
Enhancing
25% of all railway
Conducting and
proportion
stations
accessibility audit and
accessible
converting into fully
railway stations
accessible railway
stations
50% of all railway
Conducting and
stations
accessibility audit and
converting into fully
accessible railway
stations
Enhancing the
25% of Government Into fully accessible
proportion of
owned public
carriers
accessible
transport
public
transport

Time Line
July 2016

July 2017

July 2016

July 2017

July 2017

Clarifications:
1. Is accessible travel guaranteed by the campaign?
The guarantee in not accessible travel but only of proportionate stations / ports
Prepared by

2. Is there mention of trains, aircrafts to be made accessible?

The strategy paper mentions of airports and railway stations. There is no mention of
trains, air crafts etc,. being made accessible. There is also no mention of carriers
within the airports that facilitates passengers reach the aircrafts from the boarding
point. However, if we look at the 3rd objective public transport carriers probably
this would include trains, aircrafts, buses, ships, ferries etc,. But we do not know the
exact number disaggregated based on the type of carrier that we will be made
accessible. The question here is 25% of what number of carriers will be accessible.
3. What about harbors and ships?
No mention could be found.
4. What is meant by Enhancing proportion of accessible airports?
This means increasing the number of accessible airports in the country. For example
(Hypothetically) if 10 out of 50 airports are International airports and out of which 2
are accessible then the remaining international airports will be made accessible
during 2016 .
5. Do we know how many railway stations are there in India?
According to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_stations_in_India) there
are 4337 railway stations in India.
6. What is the commitment to make these railway stations accessible?
By July 2016 1084 railway stations will be made accessible
By July 2017 1626 railway stations will be made accessible
There is no commitment towards the remaining 1626 stations in the country. As per
the Railways fact sheet there are 7000 stations.
7. What is meant by Public Transport Carriers?
It could be any mode of transport that the general public uses for commuting. The
major means of transport includes: trains, buses, ferrys, trams, ships, aircrafts, public
taxis, vans etc,.
8. How many public transport carriers are there in our country?
A consolidated data on the number will be very difficult to cull out as majority of
them are State owned.
9. How much is 25% of all public transport carriers?
Prepared by

Do not know but it is very small. If we take the example of trains run by India
Railways, there are around 14300 trains (http://www.facts-about-india.com/indianrailway-facts.php). 25% of this itself would amount to 3575 trains only. All the
remaining 10725 trains will remain inaccessible. This can help us to understand that
only very numbers of carriers can only be made accessible according to this
commitment.

Prepared by

Chapter 3
Information & Communication & eco-system accessibility
Table 4:
Objects
Enhancing
proportion of
accessible and
usable public
documents and
websites

Enhancing the
pool of sign
language
interpreters
Enhancing the
proportion of
daily captioning
& sign language
interpretation
of daily news

Targets
50% Government
and State
Government
websites

Activity
Making them fully
accessible

Time Line
July 2016

50% Public
documents issues by
Union and State
Governments
200 additional sign
language
interpreters

Making them fully

accessible

July 2017

Training and
Development

July 2016

Developing standards
for captioning

July 2016

fully accessible

July 2018

25% of all public

television
programmes to
meet the standards

Clarifications
1. What are covered under information and communication accessibility?
a. Government websites to adhere to the standards.
b. Public documents include laws, rules, forms, brochures and reports.
2. What are the documents not covered under public documents?

Prepared by

Financial documents, Policy notes, citizens charter etc,. that are released by
Government and any documents produced for public access by nongovernmental agencies are not covered.
3. Will information and communication accessibility include AAC, plain language
etc,.
As per the targets mentioned above, there is specific mention of web content
accessibility and provision of sign language captioning to be more specific. Though
accessibility includes plain language and AAC, there is no specific mention on the
same.
4. Will sign language be recognized as a National language?
No. Not under this campaign. There is no mention in the strategy on this.
5. Will captioning include programmes such as films, dramas, music etc,?
No as per the strategy captions and sign language interpretation is provided for
only news.

Prepared by

Conclusion
Does this campaign adheres to the principle on Non-Discrimination mandated by
CRPD?
No. The following table illustrates the same:
Table 5: Objectives , Targets and Discrimination
Objectives
Targets
Is
it
NonDiscriminatory
Enhancing
1. 50
proportion of
Governm
accessible public
ent
No
buildings
buildings
in 26
cities

Remarks
It only covers
select building in
only 48 cities.
Persons
with
disabilities living
the rest of the
cities , towns and
villages in the
remaining
676
districts will be
discriminates.
To conclude the
69.5% of the rural
population
will
not benefit from
this campaign
Overall there is a
commitment to
cover only 50% of
any
given
transport stations
with exemption
of airports. This
is discriminating
all
those
belonging to a
particular
economic status
and that of the
place of living
25% of all carriers
is
miniscule
compared to the

2. 25
Governm
ent
buildings
in another
22 cities

Enhancing the
proportion of
accessible
transportation

Enhancing the
proportion of
airports

NO

Enhancing the
proportion of
Railway stations
Enhancing the
proportion of
public carriers

Prepared by

wide range of
public
carriers
used
in
our
country.
Only restricted
to
government
documents and
websites to the
extent of 50%.

Enhance
50% of websites
NO
proportion
and documents
accessible
information and
communication
Overall there is no commitment for full accessibility for all.
What can be done?
1. Engage now by writing letters to the concerned official to relook at the
design of the campaign
2. Ask for inclusive accessible India Campaign that No one is left behind.
3. Demands for expansion of the programme in terms of coverage
4. Apply for empanelment from all over India.
Why should we engage? To ensure Equality & Non-Discrimination.

Prepared by