ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of barriers everywhere and lack of accessibility for differently-abled individuals, a parliamentary committee on Wednesday directed airlines and banks to take immediate measures to facilitate them.

The Senate Committee on Human Rights met with Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar in the chair to discuss difficulties differently-abled people face and deliberate upon the ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Bill 2020.

Members observed that while the government has taken some important steps to advance protection of the rights of people with disabilities, the state has much more to do to ensure the right to accessibility to people with disabilities.

Chief Coordinator Pakistan Foundation Fighting Blindness Rabail Peerzada has fallen several times and even fractured her arm while getting into a Careem.

Senate committee takes up ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Bill 2020

“Everywhere, there is a risk,” said Rabail Peerzada who lost her eyesight after a head injury.

A professor Syed Sultan Shah and International Relations graduate Mohammad Shabir, both visually impaired, complained of being denied to fly without attendants on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Serene Air.

The interpreter for another hearing impaired guest in the committee room informed members about the difficulties he faced while getting an ATM card activated.

“It has been ten months I have not been able to get my ATM card activated,” the guest said.

Members were surprised that local airlines declined services to visually-impaired persons to fly alone. They also expressed shock that most banks declined services to differently-abled individuals.

State Bank Executive Director Samar Husnain informed members of that the bank has introduced various facilities for physically challenged individuals such as preferential treatment, ramps and easily readable currency notes.

“Some 40pc of the 15, 000 branches of banks have ramps. State Bank has directed that all new branches must have ramps,” the official said besides briefing on new loan and house building finance facilities.

PIA Deputy Director General Mphammad Shafiq said the airline had offered 40pc discount on tickets for differently-abled and 25pc for the attendant.

However, after listening to guests representing challenged individuals members felt that despite some facilities, the services sector had failed to implement them across the board.

It was decided that differently-abled individuals will submit a list of their problems to the committee which will then be forwarded to the SBP and local airlines.

The official of Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) assured the Committee that its recommendations regarding providing writers and assistants to disabled people during exams, provision of Braille, specially designed tests, and others will be taken to the board of governors to facilitate them.

The committee directed the State Bank to hold stakeholders’ conference on the issues for disabled people in a month’s time and conduct annual accessibility audit/evaluation of the services provided to them in three months’ time and come up with their findings.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2020