Sense and sensibility

EAR TO THE GROUND

The People with Disabilities Act, which is being revamped, should make inclusive design a reality in all products and places.

The People with Disabilities Act, now 12 years old, is up for revamp. But will the new law ensure that roads and buildings become more accessible to people with different disabilities, and the production of assistive technologies for the disabled gets a boost?

A new law has become necessary after India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons (UNCRDP) late last year.

The UNCRDP's driving principles include mobility, independent living and equality. This implies universal design for all infrastructure, besides for products, websites and so on. UNCRDP defines it as "the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design."

Recently, Techshare, a conference of IT companies on disability organised by Barrier Break Technologies in Delhi, showcased the latest in assistive technologies as well as samples of inclusive design in products from across the world, like Braille keyboards and voice enabled devices.

The need for inclusive design emphasised by the UNCRDP is reinforced by the fact that the needs of a visually impaired person are the same as that of a senior citizen whose vision has been impaired by glaucoma at a later stage.

Shilpi Kedia, managing director of Barrier Break Technologies, points out the study done by Microsoft a couple of years ago, which showed that most assistive technologies cater to 15 to 20 per cent of population, but can benefit 60 per cent of the population.

The concept of inclusive and universal design helps almost everyone use the internet, making the World Wide Web probably the best example of inclusion. It can be used on any screen, including the cellphone.

But even talking of the disabled alone, the new law needs to redefine disability before it does anything else.

Activist Javed Abidi points out: "The present law does not have a chapter on accessibility. It talks about it in the chapter on non-discrimination and inbuilt environment. Here too, the vision is limited to ramps. The need for features needed by the visually impaired find no mention. The law has no mention of access to technology and knowledge." As a result, Indian companies are constructing websites that are inaccessible to the visually impaired. The website of the ministry itself is inaccessible to them, he says.

Another social worker, Madhumita Jain, who contributed her views during the preparation of the draft of the new law, points out the low emphasis to mental illness in the present law and the need to shift emphasis to implementation.

The problem with the implementation of the law is that the government treats it as charity rather than rights, says Abidi. If the government makes it mandatory for offices and institutions to supply laptops with Braille keyboards, then they will get manufactured in India too. "We have the knowledge and the manufacturing capacity. But the government is still giving you 18th century hearing aids and 17th century wheelchairs. The hurdle is not lack of money, but lack of awareness and urgency," says Abidi.

If there can be fancy toilets all over Delhi, but with little use for a wheelchair-borne man like Abidi, then it is not due to lack of money with the municipal corporation.