Amenities for Differently-Abled Passengers: Escalators and Lifts, Braille Stickers, Wheelchair Friendly Coaches

The Minister of Railways Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal has said that to facilitate the boarding of trains and exit from the stations for the differently-abled and the elderly, the Railways proposes to take several measures. These include provision of 179 escalators and 400 lifts at A-1 and other major stations, affixing Braille stickers indicating the layout of coaches including toilets, provision of wheel chairs and battery operated vehicles at more stations and making coaches wheel-chair friendly.

Presenting the Railway Budget for 2013-14 in Parliament today he said, in order to provide an employment avenue to the disabled people, he proposed to reserve a specified number of Jan-Sadharan Ticket Booking Sevaks (JTBS) for them, keeping in view the fact that the PCOs at stations have become largely redundant after the mobile revolution in India.

MKP/AD/DB

(Release ID :92499)