Make websites disabled-friendly: High Court to Centre, state

The Bombay high court on Tuesday issued notices to several departments of the state and Central government to make their official websites disabled-friendly.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Anoop Mohta was hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Indian Centre for Human Rights, an NGO working for the betterment of disabled persons.

The PIL states that “the internet has emerged as a critical medium for communication and dissemination of information by the central and state governments...to the citizens of India.”

It adds: “The internet, in conjunction with appropriate web design, can revolutionise and vastly improve the governments’ capacity to communicate and provide information to persons with disabilities. A range of assistive technologies exist, which enable persons with disabilities to access important governmental and civic information and enable avenues for civic engagement, on an equal basis with others.”

For instance, visually impaired individuals could make use of electronic screen readers, which read text out loud, while those with hearing impairments can access videos or audio with captions and transcripts. Those with motor disabilities can access web content through other tailored technologies.

However, oversights in design and web content development, like mouse-only based web navigation, uncaptioned audio and video content, as well as unlabelled graphics, needlessly hamper the access of persons with disabilities to information.

Although the National Informatics Centre, the Department of Information Technology, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and the Government of India had formulated guidelines to standardise government websites to ensure they are disabled-friendly, the guidelines are not being utilised.

The PIL seeks that directions be given to various departments to make their websites disabled-friendly. It will come up for hearing after four weeks.

@DNA