Signages in braille, phones for disabled

Hyderabad will have India's first barrier-free access airport in 2007.

In India, "no frills" is on offer even before takeoff. Take our airports, where even basic amenities are missing, especially where the aged, the ill and the physically challenged are concerned.

Fast forward to 2007. Hyderabad's slick, new international airport is designed to give other airports terminal envy. Braille text on railings enable the blind to know the number of steps they need to climb.

Audible signals alert them while approaching escalators. Lifts have tactile graphics on the control buttons. In toilets, there are tactile tiles to guide the blind.

This is not a flight of fancy but a glimpse into the heart of the upcoming international airport in the southern Indian IT hub, which will be the first fully disabled-friendly airport in the country when it is completed two years from now.

The Bangalore-based GMR Group, which is a part of the consortium promoting the airport, has made it mandatory for contractors to ensure that the infrastructure adheres to international standards.

According to the plan, infrastructure barriers the physically disabled or the aged usually face at airports will be reduced.

"People think barrier-free access is only for the physically challenged, but facilities that go into the making of a barrier-free milieu also benefit others," says Bruce Benjamin, the management head of the airport project. "Don't ramps and lifts benefit pregnant women and the aged?" he adds.

The international airport is not just looking at elementary amenities in the form of lifts and wheelchair-friendly toilets, but also at details that do not exist in other airports.

"At some places, telephones will be at a reduced height, not higher than 900 mm above the floor level, so they are accessible to wheelchair users," Benjamin adds.

So how much does this kind of infrastructure cost? "Peanuts," says Benjamin, "Compared with the Rs 1,418 crore that is being invested in the airport."