Nipun Malhotra is wheelchair-bound for life.
His big fear at the moment is if the odd-even car formula in Delhi will render him immobile every alternate day, even as public transport remains inaccessible for persons with disabilities (PwDs) in the city.
Even the Delhi Metro that is often touted as being disabled-friendly does not have a point-to-point solution, and needs accessible complementary modes of transport to take the disabled to and from the metro stations, says Nipun.
As soon as one exits a metro station, one comes across broken surfaces and potholes. Surfaces often aren’t hard enough and the gradient of the slope is often more than 1:12 — the maximum possible for wheelchair users to move around. In fact, pavements hardly have ramps, making it impossible for a wheelchair user to use them.
Nipun Malhotra, co-founder and CEO of Nipman Foundation, a partner organisation of the ‘Accessible India’ Campaign.
Nipun, who owns even-numbered cars, says he cannot depend on public transport and private taxis to ferry him around every alternate day when even cars are banned on the roads as per the Delhi government’s odd-even plan.
The odd-even formula will see odd-numbered cars being allowed to ply on odd-numbered dates and even-numbered cars on even numbered days, starting January 1, 2016, between 8 am to 8 pm every day, with Sundays being an exemption. It will start with a 15-day trial period, and is being done as a measure to cut pollution in the capital city.
(Video edited by Purnendu Pritam)
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