Taken from Indian Express
University spaces may soon become a little more disabled-friendly, with varsities taking steps to ease mobility for special-needs students. While Jawaharlal University (JNU) will soon be running an air-conditioned bus for students to travel within its premises, Delhi University (DU) is set to provide “mobility and accessibility kits” to help visually-impaired students.
“JNU has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) for the AC bus. This will benefit around 300 differently-abled students living on campus,” JNU spokesperson Poonam Kudesia told Newsline.
For the project, BHEL will provide financial aid of Rs 30.35 lakh to the university.
The agreement comes in the wake of concerns raised by a group of differently-abled students, who had demanded that infrastructural projects to make the campus barrier-free be expedited.
In DU, visually-challenged students will soon be getting “mobility and accessibility” kits, including DAISY players, to help them move around with ease. DAISY players are essentially book-reading machines.
While the canes will give vibration warnings to students whenever there is any obstruction within a certain range, the DAISY player will help them to comfortably access and go through books.
“DU has joined hands with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to provide mobility and accessibility kits to visually-challenged students. The kit, comprising of smart canes and DAISY players will help students move around the campus,” Dr Bipin Kumar Tiwari, from DU’s Equal Opportunity Cell, said.
DU has also tied up with the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH), Dehradun, to work on the kits. The cost of each kit is estimated to be around Rs 11,000.
“While funds for the initiative have been provided by the ministry, the contents of the kit have been developed by NIVH,” Tiwari said.
Officials said the kits will be given out to around 200 students during Antardhwani, DU’s annual college fest.
Source: Indian Express.
No comments:
Post a Comment