Buildings lack facilities for differently-abled persons

No parking space is designated within state buildings for persons with disabilities

KARACHI:

Karachi, the capital of Sindh, is home to dozens of buildings of the federal and provincial governments alongside those of various government agencies, yet most of these buildings do not have special arrangements for persons with disabilities (PWDs).

This is in spite of the fact that the Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act 2018, mandates the provision of special arrangements for PWDs in all government buildings managed by the provincial government. Under this law, all existing government buildings were to be made accessible to PWDs within 5 years. However, even after the passage of seven years, no progress has been made in this direction.

Abdul Haseeb Khan, a teacher at the Sindh Education Department office in Tughlaq House, shared the challenges he faced as a differently-abled person due to the lack of designated parking spaces. "Sometimes when I visit the building for my official work, I am unable to find a disabled parking space to park my car near the building. Hence, it takes me a long time to find a parking space and even when I can, it is usually quite far from the building," lamented Khan.

Similarly, Amanullah, a government employee with a locomotor disability, also faced a similar problem while visiting the Health Department Office in the New Sindh Secretariat. "When I reach the building on my three-wheeled motorcycle I cannot find a designated parking space near the building," said Amanullah, who too had to park his car far away from the building, forcing him to walk a long distance with one leg.

"Even though different laws do exist at the provincial and federal levels to protect the rights of differently-abled people they have not been implemented properly. Under a federal law 'Accessibility Code of Pakistan, 2006' all new buildings in the country should be accessible for PWDs. Similarly, the ruling of the 'Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act 2018' dictate that facilities for people with physical disabilities are mandatory in not only the new buildings but also the existing ones," informed Abid Lashari, President of the National Disability and Development Forum, who further revealed that wheelchair ramps were only available at the Social Welfare Department in Sindh.

It is worth noting that under the Sindh Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act 2018, the provincial government was supposed to allocate special parking spaces for PWDs in all public places, but this has not happened yet. As a result, the vehicles of differently-abled employees and visitors are parked on the road outside the buildings. This can be gauged from the sheer number of official and non-official vehicles parked outside all buildings of the Sindh Secretariat including the New Sindh Secretariat, Tughlaq House, Old KDA Building and Finance Building.

A similar situation was observed at the Income Tax Building of the federal government located between these buildings, where no space was allocated for disabled parking. Similar was the predicament at the Sindh Assembly, located near the Sindh Secretariat, when it came to the provision of parking facilities for PWDs. A few years ago, a multi-story parking lot was built in the premises of the Sindh Assembly, where a parking space had been allocated for the Speaker of the Sindh Assembly however, no space was allocated for PWDs.

In this regard, The Express Tribune contacted Tauha Farooqi, Secretary of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Sindh, to delve into the reasons behind the non-implementation of the said law but he failed to respond.