The Bombay high court has directed the chief commissioners for people with disabilities in the central and Maharashtra governments to instruct all educational institutions in the country to provide a friendly environment for disabled students by March 2015.
Authorities in city colleges however say that as there was no grant from University Grant Commission (UGC) for the purpose, most unaided colleges had no facilities for disabled students.
The high court wants institutions across the country to make facilities like ramp, lifts and wash-rooms available for disabled students. According to people in the know of things, such facilities are available in city's aided colleges that get special grant from the UGC for the purpose, but are not there in unaided institutions that get no UGC grant for the purpose.
Tukaram Shiware, chairman, Association of Non-Government Colleges, said: "Aided colleges have facilities for disabled students as they get grant, but the problem is such institutions do not have disabled students. On other hand, there are disabled students in unaided colleges that have no such facilities. I suggest that UGC start providing grants to unaided colleges also."
Dr TP Madhu Nair, principal of a college, said: "Our college which is unaided have all the facilities for disabled students. Colleges that are more then five years old are expected to have all these facilities. It is the responsibility of a college to be disabled-friendly."
Not all unaided colleges however have such facilities, Dr Nair said, adding that unaided colleges that charge more fees from students should have facilities for disabled students.
As there is a court directive in this regard in place, some education authorities in the city have issued circulars on this to institutions in their jurisdictions.
Mumbai city joint director of Higher Education, Dr Manjusha Molwane, who was unaware of the high court directive, said: "I am not aware of any recent directive from the court in this regard. But we don't need to send circulars in this regard to colleges as we have already put up instructions on our website that say colleges should have facilities for disabled students."
763: Total number of college under Mumbai University
583: Number (about) of unaided colleges.
180: Number (about) of aided colleges.
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