The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed airport authorities across the country to sensitise their staff on how to be compassionate towards the needs of people with disabilities and elderly persons.
The Division Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Pankaj Mithal, while disposing of a writ petition filed by one Arushi Singh, suffering with a lifelong disability of 75 percent in her legs, adopted the proposed guidelines jointly formulated by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, on behalf of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Airport Authority of India.
The petitioner alleged that she faced harassment at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata in February this year, as she was asked thrice to stand up during the security check process despite her disability.
She further submitted that the airport authorities at the kiosk did not help her. She had to wheel herself out as only males were available at the airport to aid in such cases.
The Division Bench said the mandatory guidelines should not be limited only to wheelchair users (persons with disabilities), but should be extended to elderly people also who may need a wheelchair facility at airports.
Further, the guidelines should not be construed to mean that physical assistance provided at airports to disabled individuals be withdrawn. They would be in addition to the assistance already being provided by the airports, added the Court.
It also emphasised on comprehensive training of the airport staff, especially those falling under category B, to successfully assist physically-disabled persons at the airports.
The top court of the country said the airport staff should be imparted necessary training during regular intervals, in order to equip with the necessary skills and knowledge to assist physically disabled passengers with dignity and compassion.
Arushi Singh further contended in her plea that she has been flying between Kolkata and Delhi every three to four months for the last one-and-a-half years on work-related trips. On the date of the incident, her flight to Delhi was scheduled for 7.30 pm.
The petitioner further submitted that before entering the terminal building, she had to wait in her personal wheelchair for around 20 minutes as there was no assistant to shift her to the one provided by the airline.
The suggestions made by the SG Mehta and ASG Bhati stated that the airport staff should be given regular sensitisation training in addition to their regular security training. While the staff required to interact regularly with individuals with disabilities should be trained every three months, other staff serving at the airport should undergo the training once or twice a year, it added.
The guidelines further suggested that the staff should be introduced to various forms of disabilities and their consequences for the afflicted individuals.
The suggestions further inculded seeting up of specialised kiosks for dispensing boarding passes with voice recognition facility for such persons.
The guidelines said the Union government has a Unique Disability Identity Database (UDID) that could also be integrated into the existing ticket booking websites. This database has a repository of information on individuals suffering from various sorts of disabilities and contained an extensive list of disabilities in various categories.
It was further proposed that boarding passes for individuals with disabilities should have an alphabet code indicating the nature of disability and a colour code denoting the severity of the condition.
The guidelines further considered the possibility of such passengers needing timely assistance with wheelchair that could be provided on every gate at the airport.
It also shared the prospect of developing a real-time wheelchair availability monitoring software to provide a real-time update on the number of wheelchairs available at specified, demarcated points in the airport.