SHILLONG: Shillong, the capital and the most developed city of Meghalaya still have a long way to go as far as having basic facilities for persons with disabilities (PWDs) as they have to face hurdles while walking on the road, boarding a bus, entering a toilet or even visiting a park.
The PWDs in Shillong are often seen facing challenges while carrying out their day-to-day work as the facilities for them in Shillong is minimum.
It is seen that many of the government offices in the capital city does not have ramps but over the last few years, government have installed ramps and somehow the offices are little more accessible for them
Apart from the government buses, the public transportation system in Shillong has no facility for them be it the local taxis, city buses or the government-owned SPTS buses
While in many part of the country, there are in-built systems in public transport to facilitate boarding and alighting for passengers in wheelchairs, in Shillong no such initiative is visible.
Speaking to The Shillong Times, Bethany Society, Executive Carmo Noronha lamented that as far as transportation was concern, there was absolutely no facility for them even as many shops, toilets and even parks like Wards Lake and Lady Hydari are inaccessible for them.
It is also learnt that the government recently conducted an auditing of many government offices in the city to make it accessible for the PWDs
Apart from government installations, even private entities in the capital city so far have not given any thought about creating any facilities for them be it in their private offices or shops.
The Central Government few years back had in its bid work for the welfare of the PWD had increased their job reservation from 3 per cent to 4 percent
However, Carmo Noronha said that though it was being implemented the Central Government was still working on the details of the policy as per the grade jobs
He said that the initiative of increasing their reservation to 4 percent must be implemented at a very quick manner as things were really slow at the moment
In Meghalaya, as per government records, there are 44,317 persons with disabilities and 37,566 of them reside in rural areas but people working for the PWDs say that the number may be more than one lakh