Students and staff with disabilities studying or working in the University of Hyderabad will get some facilities, to make their campus life a bit more easier.
As per a new plan, 18 lifts will be installed in the 15 buildings, including academic, library and administration on the sprawling campus in Gachibowli area of Hyderabad. Each lift will have the provision to accommodate wheel chairs in accordance with the Bureau of Indian Standards. In addition, there will be fixtures such as auditory signals, Braille signages and accessible control panels and other works required to create a barrier-free environment and other facilities for students with disabilities that the University will take up.
The Central University has got a grant of Rs 6 crore to create the barrier-free environment. The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has approved the grant-in-aid to the university. For the present financial year, Rs 4 crore has been released as grant-in-aid. This grant has come under the schemes arising out of the implementation of persons with disabilities (Equal Opportunities Protection of Rights and Full Participation Act, 1995-SIPDA).
The Vice-Chancellor has taken the initiative of making the campus disabled-friendly. As a consequence of this, a disability audit was conducted on the campus by Shivani Gupta of AccessAbility. The Delhi-based firm is an architectural access and universal design consultancy that provides design solutions to include persons with disabilities as clients and employees.
In a press release, the university said this has been done for the first time by a Central University and the proposal sent by university has been approved by the Ministry. The university is among the top five Indian universities, with strengths in science, arts and research.
The project needs to be completed within 12 months.