The physically challenged people have appealed to District Collector V. Vishnu to instruct the officials to ensure the construction of ramps in all government buildings and also in private buildings in which shops, supermarkets, pharmacies etc. are situated.
In a petition submitted to the Collector during the special grievance redressal meet for the physically challenged held at the Collectorate on Friday, R. Shanmugasundaram, state president of Tamil Nadu Differently-abled Legal Protection Association, said buildings housing government offices should be accessible to the physically challenged persons, as per the government norms. Even as most of the government offices do not have ramps, most of the supermarkets, hotels, pharmacies, jewellery showrooms etc., all functioning in private buildings without ramp, were inaccessible to the differently-abled persons.
Hence, these unfortunate people have to rely upon someone else to enter these buildings. Considering this difficulty the physically challenged persons are facing, the District Collector should give due instruction to the officials concerned to ensure construction of ramp in these buildings.
Muthukrishnan from Venkatachalapathi Nagar in Krishnapuram submitted a petition appealing to the Collector to give on lease the pay-and-use toilets of Tirunelveli Corporation, municipalities and the town panchayats of the district to the differently-abled persons.
Petitioner K. Gandhimathi of Annai Nagar in KTC Nagar here submitted a petition seeking operation of battery-operated vehicles at Vaeinthaankulam new bus-stand to take the differently-abled to reach all the platforms of the bus terminus.
“Since the surface of the new bus-stand is slippery, the physically challenged suffer a lot while walking along this area. Hence, the battery-operated vehicles will be of great use to us,” she said.
Addressing the meeting, Mr. Vishnu said the grievance redressal meeting for the physically challenged had been revived after it was suspended two years ago in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. Since the meeting would be organised periodically for the benefit of the physically-challenged persons of the district, those who were in need of assistance should submit their petitions to get their grievances redressed.
Mr. Vishnu handed over ₹7.61 lakh-worth assistances including motorized wheelchair, retrofitted scooter, sewing machine, Braille watch, hand-pedaled cycle, black spectacles etc. to 70 differently-abled beneficiaries.
The Collector also received around 400 petitions from the physically-challenged participants who sought subsidised loans from the nationalised banks or the cooperative banks for starting their business ventures, booths for selling Aavin products and employment in private or public sector units.
“Appropriate action will be taken on these petitions at the earliest,” Mr. Vishnu assured the petitioners.
District Revenue Officer A. Perumal, Special Deputy Tahsildar, Social Security Schemes, Y. Kumaradoss, District Differently-abled Welfare Officer Brammanayagam and others were present.
