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Disabled-Friendly Infrastructure

Lack of legal obligations to blame for poor state: speakers

Staff Correspondent
Infrastructures in the country are far below standard in terms of facilities for persons with disabilities, and lack of legal obligations are to blame for it, said speakers at a discussion yesterday. Aside from gaps in laws, existing guidelines are not being followed and there are no consequences for it, they said at the discussion on situational analysis of accessible infrastructure for disabled persons at Brae Centre in Dhaka.
Under such circumstances, they urged decision-makers to be "sincere and sympathetic" to persons with disabilities while planning to build infrastructure.
Bangladesh Society for the Change and Advocacy Nexus (B-SCAN) organised the event in association with Plan International.
A number of persons with disabilities, experts and workers from different nongovernment organisations spoke at the event about the ways out of the obstacles.
Salma Mahbub, general secretary of B-SCAN, presented findings of situational analysis on five establishments: Sher-E-Bangla Nagar Govt High School; Kalyanpur Girls School and College; Mirpur Girls' Ideal Laboratory Institution (MGILI); Jatiya Protibondhi Unnayan Foundation (JPUF) complex building in the city's Mirpur, and Women Garments Workers' Hostel in Ashulia.
The study shows that the JPUF building has the most disabled-friendly infrastructure, while the four others have different obstacles for persons with disabilities.
There are no ramps or lifts in any of the three schools, except an elevator in one building in MGILI, while none of the schools have accessible toilets.
"All the buildings were built under 1993 building code, which is outdated in today's context," said Abu Sadeq, a member of the Bangladesh national Building Code (BNBC) editorial board.In 2006, the government's House Building and Research Institution formed a committee to update the BNBC, which submitted the final draft in 2015. However, the Ministry of Housing and Public Works has not issued it as a gazette yet.
According to speakers, a building construction guideline was adopted in 2008, which is effective for only Dhaka and Chattogram cities.
"However, there is no obligation to keep disabledfriendly arrangements in the 2008 guideline; hence there is no option to penalise anybody," Abu Sadeq added.
Speakers also said there is a lack of disabled-friendly arrangement in the schools of the country as well.
In 2018, the directorate of primary education adopted "infrastructure plan and planning guidelines" for primary schools which is not effective yet, according to the discussants.
Nasrin Sultana, an official from the National Academy for Education Management (NAEM) said, "There is lack of awareness regarding this issue. We can integrate a chapter regarding disabled-friendly environment in the teachers' training syllabus."
Speaking as chief guest through video conferencing, National Human Rights Commission Chairperson Nasima Begum stressed for the importance of empathy towards persons with disabilities.
Sabrina Sultana, president of B-SCAN, presided over the event, where Khaleda Akhter, additional secretary to the education ministry; Mohammad Ismail, additional secretary to the ministry of social welfare; and Iqbal Habib, joint secretary to Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), also spoke.