How Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is Impacting India and its citizens?

Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) launched the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) as a nationwide campaign to make India accessible for its Persons with Disabilities. It was launched on December 3rd, 2015. There are three important economic sectors: the construction sector, transportation sector, and ICT ecosystem. These three sectors have different aspects that they specialize in. The construction sector builds and improves infrastructures like roads, bridges, and buildings. This sector also takes care of maintenance to keep our society running efficiently. The transportation sector handles the transportation of goods, including everything from cars to aeroplanes or boats.

Part A: Built Environment Accessibility

Having an accessible physical environment is beneficial for employees of all kinds. It not only helps those with disabilities, but it allows for the entire office to enjoy an easier workload and more productivity. Necessary measures should be undertaken to eliminate obstacles and barriers to indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, medical facilities, and workplaces. These would include, for example, footpaths, roads, and parks in public spaces.

Objective 1: Increasing the proportion of accessible government buildings

Government buildings have become more accessible to all parts of society. Some quality examples include public restrooms, vending machines, and wireless internet. Providing a point-by-point explanation of the same topic. Re-inspect an accessible building at least once a year to make sure it meets accessibility standards. Then if you re-inspect a new building, only do an annual audit, not the full re-evaluation of the accessible features.

Target 1.1: Conducting an audit of the accessibility at different government buildings and converting them into fully accessible spaces that are available to all citizens on a 50-city basis by June 2022

Target 1.2: Changing the interior designs of government buildings and the all-state capitals to fully accessible buildings by June 2022

Target 1.3: Conducting audits of 50% of Government buildings in 10 of the most important cities/towns, being fully accessible by June 2022

Part B: Transportation System Accessibility

PwDs rely heavily on transportation to live independently. This is necessary for everything from getting groceries to going out with friends over dinner. Transportation includes many different aspects such as air travel, buses, taxis, and others.

Objective 2: Enhancing the number of accessible airports

If a person with a disability can use all features of an airport, then they can take the plane and check-in on their own without any problems. While airports can seem intimidating for those without accommodations, travellers with disabilities can find accessibility at airports. The environment a company provides is essential to its credibility, customer experience, and, ultimately, the business’s success.

Target 2.1: Conducting accessibility audits of all the international airports and converting them into fully accessible international airports by June 2022

Target 2.2: The current healthcare system for veterans is not competitive and worthy of support. It must be amended by upgrading domestic airports, which will be fully accessible by June 2022.

 

Objective 3: Enhancing the proportion of accessible railway stations

Target 3.1: By June 2022, converted into fully accessible railway stations, Ensuring that A, B & A1 categories of railway stations in the country.

Target 3.2: It is imperative to ensure that 50% of railway stations are fully accessible by June 2022. The only way to ensure such weight is accomplished is through today’s proactive action. 

Objective 4: An initiative to improve the number of accessible Public Transport

Target 4.1: Ensuring that 25% of the country’s government-owned public transport carriers are converted into fully accessible carriers by June 2022 is a big task. The transition will take a few key years, but it’s something that must happen for everyone’s safety and convenience.

 

Part C: Information and Communication Eco-System Accessibility

Information is very important in society. It helps guide people’s lives. People use a variety of sources to find information and make decisions on specific things like work hours or how many children they want to have. It is vital that people can interact with AI in numerous ways. You can do things like view pricing, enter a building, experience an event, and access healthcare information. There are various other things you could use an AI to help you do or simply see, such as viewing train timetables or web pages. The barriers of access that often stand between us and access to information will soon no longer exist. These changes in society aim to change the way that people get information.

Objective 5: making accessible public documentation in the office and on our website, which has publicly improved accessibility.

This will target the conversion of public documents published as a specified year and all current websites meeting the relevant International Organization for Standardization criteria found in ISO / IEC 40500: 2012, Information Technology – W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Public documents include anything the government has made – like laws, regulations, reports, and informational brochures.

Target 5.1: 50% of all government websites will be accessible to all users by June 2022.

Target 5.2: The Central Government and State Governments are committed to ensuring information is accessible for everyone, as per the law. By June 2022, at least 50% of all public documents issued by the Central Government and the State Governments should meet accessibility standards.

 

Objective 6: Enhancing the pool of sign language interpreters

Target 6.1: The organization believes that investing in 200 additional sign language interpreters will be an excellent way to grow. They plan to train these interpreters and develop them to provide the best support possible.

Objective 7: Captions and sign-language interpretation increase as a percent of national public television broadcasts.

This issue stands as a point of contention among news outlets because the government supports many more public television stations than commercial ones and does not require them to meet such standards.

Target 7.1: Developing and adopting national standards on captioning and sign-language interpretation in consultation with National media authorities by June 2022

Captioning and sign-language interpretation are a vital part of working in the media production industry. Television, radio broadcasts, and news stories are just a few examples. This is especially true for international broadcasters who need easy access to captions for their audiences.

Target 7.2: Ensuring that 25% of public tv programs aired by government channels meet these new standards by June 2022. Accessibility is about providing equal access to everyone. Disabled persons can’t be fully included without access to the essential services of a community, but that’s where accessible facilities come in – they provide this sort of help. The Accessible India campaign is looking for the cooperation of all Central Government Departments/Ministries and State Governments to make India universally accessible.

A scheme recently introduced by the Modi government to recognize and celebrate the lives of those with disabilities. There are still a lot of accessibility issues that need to be addressed in India, and while it may difficult at times, they are working on developing a new scheme to make things more accessible.