World Disabled Day comes and goes as usual every December 3, with, in most cases, the authorities making high-sounding promises towards the welfare of this most disadvantaged section. Out of practical experience, for example, it is disheartening that the weekly train 22659/60 (Thiruvananthapuram-Dehradun) does not have a “Disabled coach”. Thus disabled persons, especially students, trainees and patients bound for the two national institutes for visually and orthopaedically handicapped persons, at Dehradun, are forced to travel in the general compartments facing several hardships and untold miseries.
Though it has been brought to the attention of the divisional railway authorities at Thiruvananthapuram, from where the train starts, not much seems to have happened. Why should the disabled continue to suffer?
G. John,
Dehradun, Uttarakhand
