Govt move to make schools build infrastructure for disabled

BHUBANESWAR: The state government pulled up district education authorities for not responding to its letters regarding making government elementary schools disabled-friendly.
The Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA) has sent a final reminder on Wednesday, asking the district authorities to inform the action taken to make the campuses disabled-friendly by March 2020.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, says that all recognized school buildings should have barrier-free access. To implement this, the Central government has written letters to different states and Union territories to take necessary action in this regard.

Department of school education and literacy under the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has sent five letters to the state government starting March 22, 2017, to November 26 last year. The school and mass education department of the state has also written a letter to OPEPA on December 18 last year to take necessary action in this regard.

Bhupendra Singh Poonia, state project coordinator of OPEPA, on Wednesday issued a final reminder to all district project coordinators, Right to Education-Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to take expeditious steps for furnishing of funds requirement to achieve the target towards 100% barrier-free access for children in all elementary schools.

In the letter, Poonia said, “Though a period of two months (approximately) have already been passed away but not a single reply has been received from your end till date for which our department faces an embarrassing situation as the government of India is pressing hard for achieving 100% barrier-free access in all government elementary schools by 2020.”

Barrier-free environment in the school buildings will include provision of ramps, rails, lifts, toilets for wheelchair users, Braille signage and auditory signals as envisaged in the PwDs Act.