Soon, Indian Railways will have many disabled-friendly railway stations! Standard Chartered Bank is joining hands with Anuprayaas and Samarthanam Trust for making a total of 30 railway stations across the country accessible for those with disabilities by providing a host of disabled-friendly facilities. This is being done under the Standard Chartered Bank’s initiative of “Seeing is Believing”, which tackles avoidable blindness and visual impairment. According to the bank, the project aims to aid people with visual disabilities, people utilizing wheelchairs, as well as those with hearing disabilities to travel independently as well as with dignity by reducing their dependency on others while travelling by Indian Railways. The disabled-friendly facilities which will be provided are as follows:

  • Guiding Braille indicators will be installed at station platforms and railings to identify platform numbers and facilities
  • Braille General Signs will be provided for facilities like a male-female toilet
  • Reflective strips to be provided at stairs for those with low vision
  • Braille Maps of the station will be provided
  • Braille information booklets will be provided at the station enquiry counters
  • There will be QR code to watch the video about the railway station in sign language
  • Portable ramp and wheelchair to board the divyang coach

Though the Thane railway station in Maharashtra will be the first to be ready, all these facilities will be made available at these 30 railway stations across the country by 1 April 2022. Some of the major stations out of the 30 railway stations to be covered under this project include Bandra, Agra, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Egmore Chennai, Bhopal, Mathura and Secunderabad.

According to Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, India, Standard Chartered Bank, making stations accessible for those with disabilities is a positive step in the bank’s journey towards being an inclusive organisation. Bhatia also mentioned that this project under the bank’s Seeing is Believing initiative, reaffirms the Standard Chartered Bank’s commitment to increasing accessibility as well as dismantling barriers for people with disabilities.