TRUE TO HILT आप
It is the responsibility of one and all to assist specially-abled population as the government alone cannot make the society inclusive. The points raised by Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta over the need for having public infrastructure amenable to specially-abled people for their easy access to them are quite significant and every entity in the UT of J&K having potential to do something in this direction should own responsibility and execute the needful actions. Though the Chief Secretary has focused on educational and health institutions of the UT, providing facilities to the physically challenged at every step is imperative to deliver justice as they do have the right to live a life full of amenities and facilities including even the entertainment part like the cinemas, and theaters as well. Every public facility should fully support the people with special needs and this should not be taken as providing any kind of alms or special care but it is the moral and social responsibility of the government and the society as a whole, like the way CS Mehta has explained the same in detail. The CS was chairing the 22nd Steering Committee meeting of Scheme for Implementation of Rights for Persons with Disabilities (SIPDA) and highlighted several pivotal points to make J&K an inclusive society with equal opportunities for the physically challenged. For making J&K ready for catering to the needs of specially-abled, it is necessary that all the measures possible for making public offices and infrastructure accessible to such persons should be taken without fail and at the earliest. Nevertheless, by now all the offices, market places, hospitals, malls, cinemas, etc should have been equipped with things necessary to provide facility to specially-abled like the special ramps, washrooms, etc. although on ground things are still dismal with very few of such buildings having the infrastructure to support the population with special needs. There is a need to have footpaths which can support the automatically driven wheelchairs, which is a common feature in foreign lands and the low floor public transport buses to ferry the specially-abled along with their wheelchairs. If such infrastructure can be developed abroad then why not in the country, especially J&K, which is no less than any other country or state of India. It is good that under the administration of LG Manoj Sinha things have started rolling in the right direction and one can anticipate that sooner than later a vibrant change could be seen in the UT whereby specially-abled will get their due share of rights and facilities and the society will become inclusive in complete sense.