The specially-abled people are being specially taken care of in Virudhnagar because of the initiative of one officer who has decided to make their lives easier. In a one-of-its-kind initiative in Tamil Nadu, IAS officer J Meghanath Reddy is reaching out to the differently-abled people by providing them a hygienic, user-friendly, accessible and dignified household toilets. This novel idea is being implemented under Project Udhayam which is basically designed to fulfill the basic needs of disabled people in their households. By launching this scheme, the officer has done something which even the government couldn’t think of. Speaking to Indian Masterminds, Mr. Reddy revealed how this idea came to his mind and how far he as been successful in implementing it on the ground.
REALISATION
The government of India under the Swatch Bharat Mission provides sanitation facilities which are mostly accessible to normal and not the differently-abled. It escaped everyone’s notice, and Mr. Meghanath Reddy also didn’t realise it until he chanced upon a disabled girl during an interaction in the month of July this year.
He said, “During the discussion, there was a girl who explained her trauma of not being able to use the toilet properly. It was primarily because the Indian toilets are mostly small and do not consider PWD in them.”
By hearing such issues during the discussion, the officer realized that there are many physically challenged people whose mobility is restrained below the waist, and for them it is technically impossible to use the Indian washroom. There were many cases where people had to manually remove their excreta and somewhere people had to literally drag their body to use the washroom. Hearing all these narrations disturbed and hurt him a lot at the same time.
“This is when,” the officer said, “the idea came up to initially conceptualise a disabled-friendly toilet for the girl who was present during the discussion through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds, which was later scaled up to other beneficiaries as well.”
FACILITIES
The district administration dug deep into the issues faced by these people in a comprehensive manner and started enumerating the kits particularly for those men and women with requirements for accessible toilets, and who also got land at their disposal where such toilets can be set up.
The main things required to build these toilets were ramps for approach, wheelchair clearance, wheelchair turning radius, support handrails on-ramp, wheelchair maneuvering space inside the toilet and at the door opening, arrangements for cleaning without assistance, and adequate ventilation.
The details of differently-abled persons in need of such accessible household toilets in the district were collected. Close to 25 toilets have been constructed so far across the district and a list of differently-abled persons living in Samathuvapuram areas have been enumerated.
Mr. Reddy said, “Around 40 toilets are under construction right now and we are trying to achieve the 100 target by the end of this month.”
To provide these model individual toilets with accessible facilities for the differently-abled, it has been decided to reach out to all the possible funding sources such as District Mineral Fund, CSR Fund and convergence of other possible scheme funds.
Each toilet construction is estimated at Rs.35,000 and detailed estimates are provided.
RESPONSE
This noble step taken by the officer is a big sigh of relief for many people in the district and the benefits of the project are already visible. A beneficiary named S.Ragavarshini said, “The scheme is very helpful for disabled people like me and the structure of the toilet is well designed and easy to handle.”
She was using a common washroom prior to this initiative and was dependent on others for her day-to-day basic facilities. Like her, many others are also availing such benefits under this project and are finally free from any worries they were facing before, as they are now able to go about their daily routine by themselves without depending on any assistance from others.
