IIT-Kharagpur’s offers course on building accessibility to engineering students

NEW DELHI: Civil engineering students at IIT-Kharagpur will soon be able to undertake studies on making buildings accessible, with the Centre's disability affairs department partnering with the premier institute to introduce a special course, according to officials. The first-of-its-kind course, to be elective for now, will be offered from the 2024-25 academic session to students in the sixth and seventh semesters. The Centre plans to introduce the course in 27 institutes, including other IITs. "The course will be offered as an elective within the civil engineering programme during the sixth and seventh semesters at IIT-Kharagpur. It will carry 30 credits.

"The objective is to integrate accessibility into education early so that students incorporate it into building design. Currently, there is no such course in the education system," Disability Affairs Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal told PTI. Elaborating on the plan to scale up the course, a senior official said the disability affairs department is in talks with the Council of Architecture to include the subject in their curriculum. "The overall plan is to gradually introduce the course in 27 institutions across the country.

Partnership with NIUA

Starting September, it will be available as an elective at IIT-Kharagpur for three years, after which it might become a mandatory subject," the official said. IIT-Kharagpur had earlier partnered with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) for 'Building Accessible Safe and Inclusive Indian Cities' (BASIIC). The institutes' top experts -- Subrata Chattopadhyay and Haimenti Banerjee -- from the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, have been tasked with developing the course on "Accessible Built Environment" with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD).

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"Constructing accessible buildings needs experts and it is important that our future infrastructure builders have professional training about the same. "We have been teaching our students aspects of green buildings. But it's time that constructing accessible buildings is formally incorporated into our curriculum. The course will be offered as an elective for now," a senior IIT Kharagpur official told PTI.

Course details

The course will include smart and inclusive habitat, accessibility and infrastructure-driven livability, and inclusive urban planning. The initiative is part of the government's Accessible India 2.0 campaign aimed at achieving universal accessibility for persons with disabilities (PwDs). Under the Accessible India campaign, the government is working towards making its buildings across the country accessible for people with disabilities. One of the recommendations of the Disabilities Bill, passed in Parliament in 2016, was setting a deadline for the creation of barrier-free access to buildings and transport systems.

Under the Accessible India campaign, 50 per cent of public buildings and transport were to be made fully disabled-friendly by July 2018. Access audits were conducted on 1,671 buildings across 48 cities. The Centre received financial proposals for the retrofitting of 1,484 buildings. Work in 1,314 buildings has been sanctioned, and 623 buildings in 20 states have been retrofitted, the Social Justice Ministry had informed Rajya Sabha. After the audits, state governments sent proposals to the DEPwD which released funds to retrofit these buildings. According to section 44 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, the norms for retrofitting included the creation of ramps in public buildings, modification of toilets for wheelchair users and installation of Braille symbols in elevators.