No MCG, HUDA buildings are friendly for the differently-abled

Every city authority vows of being people-friendly, however, they probably forget to count the differently-abled as a part of the city as in the case of Millennium City.

The differently-abled have been facing difficulties in parking their vehicles in offices and building of Gurgaon, as there is not a single building of the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) and Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) that have allotted disable-friendly space to its visitors. According to the information received from the respective Corporations, HUDA has around 21 parking sites and MCG has more than 25 parking sites, neither of which has disabled-friendly parking systems.

Among the most prominent buildings under MCG and HUDA that have failed to qualify as disabled-friendly are Galleria Market, Leisure Valley, Sector 21 Huda Market, General Bus Stand, Huda City Centre Metro station and Kingdom of Dreams. These buildings and many more have failed on parameters like ramps, escalators, platform lifts, railings and many more to be labelled as disable-friendly.

According to an RTI filed by Aseem Takyar, majority of the government buildings including the mini-secretariat, police stations, HUDA and MCG offices also lack basic facilities for the differently-abled.

Also, they were found lacking wheelchairs and reserved parking lots. Further, none of the toilets were found fitted with disabled-friendly accessories such as handles and western commodes.

“MCG is a six year old Corporation which will grow over a period of time. We were mostly concerned with the urgent and emergency situation that was a priority. With a sense of confidence and authority, I can assure that over the period of time we’ll be able to get disable-friendly parking spaces. Also, we’ll be soon marking out different offices and buildings that may need disabled-friendly facilities,” said T L Satyaprakash, the Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon.

One of the most frequently visited places by the differently-abled are metro stations, where there are no reserved parking facilities for them.