Thread by @DisabilityIndia

"Level Boarding = Level Playing Field.
Anything less and it's not PUBLIC transport.
#BusKaro excuses!"
For 15+ years now, India's disabled citizens have been advocating for public transport that actually includes ALL.
All these years wheelchair users heard the same tired excuses

@armanaly @NPRD_IN @drsitu @SCVashishth @vjayakumar @RajivSpeaks @Shampa_Sengupta @Deepak_TMN @SUMNetIndia ... Roads and Monsoons (And Money... And other conveniently selective 3rd world excuses from the Land of Chandrayaan)

In 15 years India's space odyssey has witnessed 2 missions to the moon, 1 to Mars with 2022 promising Chandrayaan 3, Aditya and prep for Mars 2 and Venus in 2024

Yet (as the pic above showed) Fathima still laboriously boards a bus on crutches. She has to crawl up the steps of the ubiquitous Indian high floor bus.

Yet, Fathima's 'lucky', at least she gets to somehow use public transport unlike India's wheelchair users under house arrest

As we've been saying for 15 years + ... A safer, better way forward for public transport vis a vis buses means quite simply 3 things :
* Low Floor
* Step Free
* Level Boarding
SO #BusKaro with excuses and outdated technology.
Accessible travel for ALL isn't rocket science, India!

.. So we were dismayed in early February '22 that @ConvergenceCESL's 'biggest ever bus tender in India' featured a requirement of at least 1550 high floor buses - not just a regressive step (pun intended) but also non-compliant with UBS-II & AIS bus codes

https://twitter.com/DisabilityIndia/status/1489262519268958224

Despite flagging the #FAME2 subsidy scheme's historic non-compliance with UBS-II, AIS-052, AIS-153 with @MHI_GoI - (same Ministry of Heavy Industry that oversees ARAI - framers of AIS bus body code standards!) the @ConvergenceCESL tender remained unchanged

https://twitter.com/DisabilityIndia/status/1489267983138521094

Despairing of @MoHUA_India @MHI_GoI @MinOfPower @ConvergenceCESL inaction, on 24 Feb 2022, FMC - a pan-Indian group of disability rights activists & organisations, sent an official representation to CESL (read after press note @ bit.ly/cesl-bus-karo )

https://twitter.com/RajivSpeaks/status/1496834377967636482

On 26 Feb 22, Freedom of Movement Coalition was pleased to note that @TSRTAIndia joined @dtchq_delhi and @BMTC_BENGALURU in tendering for only low floor buses. As @CommissionerSMC tender is for BRTS as per @ConvergenceCESL, @TransportWest is only outlier!
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

Following FMC's 2 Mar '22 meeting with @ConvergenceCESL, a representation was sent to WB Transport authorities @FirhadHakim @TransportWest stressing Kolkata's contravention of UBS-II, AIS, 2016 Disability Act, Supreme Court and requesting low floor buses. bit.ly/oh-kolkata

While we wait for Kolkata to comply by 7 March '22 - (scheduled end date of @ConvergenceCESL tender) we'd like to remind Surat @CommissionerSMC that BRTS infra accessibility should be guaranteed and high floor buses should not be recycled for city bus use.

https://twitter.com/RBPachhapur/status/1084077655509524480

Correction - linked tweet has wrong table and info on original @ConvergenceCESL tender. It should read :
.. So we were dismayed in early Feb '22 that India's 'biggest ever bus tender' required at least 1850 high floor buses - flouting UBS & AIS bus codes.

https://twitter.com/DisabilityIndia/status/1499606631314690050