In a first, the Delhi government’s Social Welfare Department is constructing a hostel for the visually-impaired women in the Capital. While there are hostel facilities for visually challenged men, there are no such facilities for women so far.
The new hostel will be a big relief for the visually challenged women students who come to Delhi from other parts of the country for studies and are forced to stay in private accommodation sans any kind of assistance that a visually impaired person requires.
Karuna, a visually impaired student who lives on rented accommodation in Mukherjee Nagar said: “It will be good if the government builds a hostel for the visually-impaired women because we are forced to live in rented accommodation where there is no one to assist us if we need something.”
The women’s hostel is being constructed on a 3,752 square meter land in Timarpur and is supposed to be ready within the next two years.
“We are building a hostel for the visually impaired women students in college. So far, there is no government hostel for visually impaired students. Girl students face safety issues in private hostels. This is the reason why the government felt the need to construct a hostel for women,” Social Welfare Department Minister Sandeep Kumar told The Hindu .
Currently, there are two hostels for visually impaired men in the Capital including one school cum hostel. The current hostel and school provides them assistance of care givers who help them in carrying out their daily chores.
“There are different categories of visually impaired persons who live in the hostels here. Some are partially impaired and some are fully impaired. Those who are fully impaired need assistance to do their daily chores, our care givers help them with that. Other than that, we also take care of the medical facilities for the students here,” a senior official at Sewa Kutir said.
The students living in school cum hostel do not require transport facilities since school is situated in the same building. For college going students, Delhi University has provided a bus facility for those going to North campus colleges.
For anything else, they have to manage on their own. The hostel authorities however do provide transport facilities to those who are unwell.
While basic facilities are available in the hostel, students want things like library, wi-fi and sports facilities in the hostel campus.
Pintoo Kumar, a visually-impaired student said: “We should be provided better sports facilities by the hostel authorities. A lot of us here are athletes and national level champions but there is no support from the side of hostel authorities in supporting our endeavour. We should also be given a library and reading facilities. Wi-fi and internet facilities are also not available here.”
