Indian Railways has more than 8700 stations and it has always been the endeavour of the Railways to provide adequate amenities to passengers at Railway Stations, including those for differently abled passengers (Divyangjan) which is a continuous process. Provision of facilities for Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) are to be provided at all stations over Indian Railways based on the needs of travelling public and availability of funds. In order to provide better accessibility to Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), Short Term Facilities and Long Terms facilities have been planned at all stations, beginning with Non Suburban Group ‘NSG 1’, ‘NSG 2’, ‘NSG 3’ & ‘NSG 4’ (erstwhile ‘A-1’, ‘A’ & ‘B’) category stations. The details of Railway stations provided with Short-Term Facilities so far for Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) under all categories of stations over Indian Railways are as under:-

Long-Term Facilities are to be provided for Divyangjan at ‘NSG-1’ to ‘NSG-4’ categories of stations, which are as follows:-

Further, in order to facilitate easy movement of elderly, sick and differently abled passengers and for smooth access to platforms of major railway stations and for ease of movement, escalators/lifts are being provided as part of ‘Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan’. So far, 669 escalators at 240 stations and 493 lifts at 214 stations have been provided.

All General Managers of Zonal Railways have been instructed to provide Special Training Modules on Soft Skills as a part of Initial/Refresher/Special Courses to all frontline staff directly dealing with customers wherein greater thrust has been given towards customer satisfaction and the need to focus on customer as principal client.

All commercial frontline staffs are given special training on passenger amenities wherein training on special facilities provided for Physically Challenged persons and provision of wheel chair are given.

• Zonal Railways have been instructed to provide one wheelchair per platform and in case of island platforms, one wheel chair per two platforms at all A-1 and A category stations.
• Yatri Mitra Sewa has also been introduced at major railway stations for enabling passengers to book wheel chairs services cum porter services free of cost through NGOs, Charitable trust, PSUs etc under CSR and responsibility of providing this facility has been entrusted with IRCTC. In case of lack of response from NGOs, Charitable trust, PSUs etc., this service may be arranged on payment basis through a service provider or on its own.
• Passenger can book e-wheelchairs on line through IRCTC portal www.irctc.co.in. The facility is presently, available at 22 stations i.e. Ahmedabad, Agra Cantt., Vadodara, Varanasi, Bhusawal, Vijayawada, Kanpur Central, Mumbai CST, Mumbai Central, Howrah, Indore, Jhansi, Jaipur, Lucknow Jn., Lucknow, New Delhi, Nagpur, Pathankot Cantt., Pune, Bengaluru City, Secunderabad and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra.
• Passengers can book cab/coach & porter service online through IRCTC portal www.irctc.co.in. The facility is available at Chandigarh, Gaya, Guntur, Howrah, Jaipur, Lucknow, Lucknow Jn., Madurai, New Delhi, Delhi Jn., Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi Safdarjung, Anand Vihar, Delhi Cantt., Delhi Sarai Rohilla, Tirupati and Vijaywada.
• Powers have been delegated to DRMs to decide the provision of Battery Operated Vehicles (BOVs) at station on merit – whether free of cost through commercial publicity route or through ‘user pays’ route.
• At the Divisional level, Chief Travelling Ticket Inspectors/In-charges (CTTI/ICs), Station Managers (SMRs) and concerned Commercial Inspectors are directed to perform duty as a disability Inspector for providing assistance to Persons with Disabilities.

This information was given by the Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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SVS/AP/ENS