Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan)

Source: PIB

Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is the nationwide campaign launched by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment for achieving universal accessibility for all citizens including Persons with Disabilities, to be able to gain access and live independently. 

Components 

The Accessible India Campaign comprises of the following key components:

• Built Environment Accessibility: The campaign aims to provide an accessible physical environment for everyone. To achieve this, measures need to be undertaken to eliminate obstacles and barriers to indoor and outdoor facilities including schools, medical facilities, and workplaces. 
• Transportation System Accessibility: The campaign focuses on providing persons with disabilities an equal right to travel and use public and private transportation infrastructure with dignity and independence.
• Information and Communication Eco-System Accessibility: Access to information refers to all information. This can range from actions such as being able to read price tags, to physically enter a hall, to participate in an event, to read a pamphlet with healthcare information, to understand a train timetable, or to view webpages. The Accessible India Campaign aims to take measures to curb all societal barriers of infrastructure, and inaccessible formats that stand in the way of obtaining and utilizing information in daily life.

Targets 

Under the campaign,

• At Least 50% of all the government buildings of the National Capital and all the State capitals will be made fully accessible for persons with disabilities by July 2018.
• Conducting audit of 50% of government buildings and converting them into fully accessible buildings in 10 most important cities/towns of all the States (July 2019).
• All the international airports in the country and railway stations of A1, A & B categories will be made fully accessible by July 2016.
• Conducting an accessibility audit of all the domestic airports and converting them into fully accessible airports(March 2018).
• Ensuring that A1, A & B categories of railway stations in the country are converted into fully accessible railway stations (July 2016).
• Ensuring that 50% of railway stations in the country are converted into fully accessible railway stations (March 2018).
• Ensuring that 25% of Government-owned public transport carriers in the country are converted into fully accessible carriers (March 2018).
• Conducting accessibility audit of 50% of all government (both Central and State Governments) websites and converting them into fully accessible websites (March 2017).
• Ensuring that at least 50% of all public documents issued by the Central Government and the State Governments meet accessibility standards (March 2018).
• Developing and adoption of national standards on captioning and sign-language interpretation in consultation with National media authorities. (July 2016)
• Ensuring that 25% of all public television programmes aired by government channels meet these standards.(March 2018)