Merlin Francis
Despite the Garden City tag, Bangalore still has a long way to go to make itself accessible to the disabled people. Of nearly 710 parks in Bangalore, only three Coles Park, MN Krishna Park in Basavanagudi and Gayathri Devi Park in Rajajinagar are wheelchair-friendly or “Inclusive”.
Kavitha Krishnamoorthy, founder of Kilikili, a trust that works for inclusive play spaces, said,” An inclusive Park is accessible to everyone and includes both disabled and well as abled children, and the equipment can be used by both.”
Apart from the ramp at the gate and pathways for a wheel chair, an inclusive park will also include a safe swing set or family swing that can seat both the child and adult, wheel chair s can also play.
“These can be used by all children,” said Kavitha. “They just come with a few modifications so that children with a disability can also be included.”
The remodeling of the Coles Park cost about Rs6.5Lakhs and nearly 5Lakh came from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) alone. “The park was modified after consultations with the childrens, special educators, and occupation therapists.” she said, adding that K Jayaraj, former commissioner of the BBMP, sanctioned two more such Parks in the south and west zones of the BBMP (Rajajinagar and Basavanagudi)
In Kavitha’s opinion modifying existing Parks to make it inclusive may cost the BBMP slightly more than the already allocated Rs4Lakh for renovation of play spaces.
“Every three to four years, about Rs4Lakh is allocated for renovation of play spaces. By using this money creatively, in consultation with groups working with disabled children, all the parks in the city can be made disabled-friendly”. She said, Nevertheless, proposals to make atleast another four inclusive play spaces at Jayanagar, Whitefield and Koramangala 1 Block and Jeevanabhimanagara are with the BBMP for the last Two and Half Years,
“The last year has been slow despite repeated efforts to complete these projects”, said Kavitha.
“The original site for such a Park in Jayanagar was taken over for the Metro, Though we proposed a number of their sites over the last two years, nothing has come out of it,” With regard to the Koramangala park, she said that evan though nearly 50% of the work has been completed, the remaining work has been at a stand-still for some time now, The BBMP has cited monetary crunches.