As per the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry, 61 state transport undertakings (STUs) operate 1,45,747 buses, among which only 51,043 are equipped with boarding and deboarding facilities for persons with disabilities (PwDs).
At least 12 state transport agencies do not have a single bus for specially-abled persons, and around 65 per cent of public transport buses that the state authorities operate don’t cater to the needs of physically challenged passengers.
As per the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry, 61 state transport undertakings (STUs), which are members of the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (ASRTU), operate 1,45,747 buses, among which only 51,043 are equipped with boarding and deboarding facilities for persons with disabilities (PwDs), The New Indian Express reported.
Transport Services With Or Without Facilities For PwDs
State agencies that do not have buses equipped with facilities for PwDs, are Arunachal Pradesh State Transport Department, Haryana State Transport, Jammu and Kashmir State Road Transport Corporation, Meghalaya Transport Corporation, Mizoram State Transport, Odisha State Road Transport Corporation, Punjab State Bus Stand Management Company, State Transport Punjab, Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation, Sikkim Nationalised Transport, South Bengal State Transport Corporation and Uttarakhand Transport Corporation.
While responding to questions in Rajya Sabha recently, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari stated the entire fleet of Agra-Mathura Transport Services Ltd, Allahabad City Transport Services Ltd, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), Jaipur City TSL, Kanpur City Transport Services Ltd, Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation, Lucknow City Services Ltd, Meerut City Transport Services Ltd, Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT), Tamil Nadu Kumbakonam and Varanasi City Transport Services Ltd have boarding and deboarding facilities for persons in special need.
Congress MP Amee Yajnik sought to know whether most buses have any facility for boarding and deboarding passengers with special needs, even after the amendment in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989.
Gadkari told the Parliament that the ministry had taken various measures to achieve the targets fixed in the Accessible India Campaign (AIC), including directions for alteration in motor vehicles to facilitate the movement of PwDs.
He stated that state governments and Union territory administrations had been asked to make 25 per cent of government public transport vehicles fully accessible by March 2019.
Article Credits: The Logical Indian