Finally, PCMC sets up ramp for disabled

Finally, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has woken up to the needs of more than 50,000 physically challenged people residing in its jurisdiction and has constructed a ramp at the entrance to its head office in Pimpri.

The PCMC engineering department official, Dilip Kudale, told DNA that similar structures would come up at its zonal offices. In March, the PCMC had given a written assurance to provide the ramps at municipal offices and public places.

For the last five years or so physically challenged residents of the city — led by wheelchair-bound social activist and president of Jagrit Apanga Sanstha and Nagri Hakka Suraksha Samiti (NHSS), Manav Kamble — have been demanding such infrastructure.

Kamble had undertaken a hunger strike some time ago that forced the civic body to give a written commitment to construct such ramps at its offices.

The NHSS served a legal notice to the PCMC for violating the Rehabilitation of Disabled Act, 2005, under which it is mandatory for all government authorities to provide ramps for the physically challenged.

DNA had highlighted the issue several times and last year the municipal commissioner, Ashish Sharma, had assured this newspaper that ramps would be set up by the PCMC.

Expressing happiness that the civic body is creating facilities, Kamble said the physically challenged would be able to visit the offices without difficulty. He complimented DNA for highlighting the issue repeatedly.