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First e-guide on Delhi for disabled travellers launched

Anupama Sushil - New Delhi

New Delhi-based disability employment specialist AccessAbility (accessability.co.in) has launched an online information guide giving disabled travellers information on facilities at various places of interest in Delhi and the NCR. The online guide called Free2Wheel is aimed at helping people who use wheelchairs.

According to Sachin Verma, co-founder of AccessAbility, the understanding and awareness of the needs of the disabled are now beginning to be recognised. He said, "But a huge gap between the planner and the executer exists. Hence, the e-guide could be one step that would show a way to increase awareness." Explaining 'accessibility', he adds that a structure is accessible when it can be used by the disabled as well as the others. "It means that the structure does not require complex re-arrangement but just a bit of tweaking to be fit for use by the disabled," he added.

The website currently has over 2,000 listings of various places of interest including restaurants, bars, nightclubs, cafes, currency exchange counters and tourist information centres along with their accessibility preparedness. "The site is just a pre-release of a printed version of a similar guide intended to be distributed at book shops, embassies, tourist places, monuments, airport, etc. It would be free and would be co branded by a renowned hospitality group which itself is into disabled-friendly practices," added the co-founder. The guide also includes budget hotels that are not fully accessible but are still reasonably usable and are frequented by wheelchair travellers.

According to Verma, the company has no connection with the American one (accessability.org) that goes by the same name.