Disabled get travel wings as start-ups lend a helping handSharmila Ganesan
Ram
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toireporter/author-Sharmila-Ganesan-Ram-479207548.cms>
| TNN | May 2, 2017, 09.47 AM IST
Thirty-seven-year old Rustom Irani
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Rustom-Irani>'s pale legs have
tur ned an angry pin kish-brown. It's as if they are still blushing from
his recent trip to Goa when, for the first time in 15 years, the
Mumbai-based filmmaker wore swimming trunks to the beach. He had strapped
himself to what looked like a yellow beachside chair with wheels that
rolled him right out into the Arabian Sea. For the next three hours,
sprawled on this amphibian chair, he bobbed up and down in the ocean, let
out childish screams and returned with a lesson: always pack sunscreen.
Incidentally, three mornings after Irani's outing, dozens of wheelchair
users like him rolled down a wooden ramp at the same be ach and floated in
its newly accessible waves. This hydraulic coincidence at Candolim owes to
two separate initiatives that signal the rising tide of inclusive travel in
India.

While Irani was testing out the imported floating wheelchair for Enable
Travel, a website launched by Cox & Kings to help the disabled navigate
India, the masses at Candolim beach were caused by `Beachfest', a five-day
wheelchair-accessible festival organised by the accessible-travel portal,
UMOJA."When people come to beach destinations, the physically challenged
member is usually left behind but beaches are for everyone," says Yeshwant
Holkar, CEO of UMOJA. Similar grouses are now prompting startups to venture
into inclusive travel, in line with the government's two-year-old
Accessible India campaign. They know that a huge domestic and international
market of disabled people is desperate to travel.

Inevitably, an estimated population of 20 million disabled Indians becomes
"invisible", says Mumbai-based Divyanshu Ganatra, a clinical psychologist
and the first blind Indian to paraglide solo. "How many disabled friends do
you have?" asks Ganatra, who founded Adventures Beyond Barriers Founda tion
in 2014. While trekking in the Sahyadris or cyling from Manali to Leh's
Khardung La alongside people with disabilities, the able-bodied trip over
insights. "They realise basic things like a blind can hold a full-time job
and operate cellphones and that amputees can climb mountains," says
Ganatra, who has seen several builders go back with ideas for making
buildings accessible.

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The problem with certain travel startups, says Ganatra, is that their
"access audits" are conducted by able-bodied people who may fail to check
for little details such as softness of mattress or availability of cordless
phones. To avoid this, Enable Travel, a Braille-compliant portal, has
enlisted a panel of experts with disabilities among whom is Shama Noorani,
a wheelchair-bound Angel healer and Prabal Malaker, a retired Air Force
officer who swims, hits the gym and travels undeterred by multiple
sclerosis. "No two disabled have the same needs," says Irani, one of the
experts. "Someone using crutches may not need a wide door while a
wheelchair user might," says Irani, adding that after over two years of
recces, the portal has identified14 cities in India where it plans to part
ner with sightseeing points, hotels, and entertainment firms.There are also
plans to introduce tactile tours of museums and spice farms as also to
import wheelchair accessible aids such as foldable ramps.


While many five-stars and three-stars have decent amenities for wheelchair
users, "they ignore the vision and hearing impaired," says Holkar. "When
security personnel at hotels ask the visually impaired to hand them their
bags without explaining why , the clients are bound to be startled," says
Holkar, who co-founded UMOJA three years ago when the travel misadventures
of a polio-affected friend introduced him to the "massive information gap
on accessible travel in India". This is why , his website launched an app
where hotels feed information such as measurements and photos. Also, it
makes sense for properties to invest in devices like pillow shaker
alarms--a device that alerts the hearing impaired to the sound of doorbells.


In fact, the need to make road transit smoother has now led tour operators
to tie up with wheelchair taxi services. At present, two travel giants are
in talks with Ezymov , a startup that runs ten cars with inbuilt hydraulic
lifts that ferry wheelchair-bound patrons locally for Rs 200 per four
kilometers. "We don't advertise as we know we won't be able to meet the
demand," says Bennet Dcunha of Ezymov , which sees 55 clients per day
mostly through word of mouth, among whom are senior citizens who have
suggested that he start car-pooling service for patients. Besides, the high
cost of imported devices--a shower wheelchair could easily cost $1000--is
prompting startups likethe Pune-based Arcatron to develop economical,
portable versions.


Simple hacks may hold the key , feel clients. "Architects like to
complicate things as they are swayed by vendors," feels Ashok Sar, an
Orissa-based wheelchair-bound professor. Besides, air travel too must be
made easier, says Hyderabad's Sai Kaustuv Dasgupta, a wheelchair-bound
graphic designer with brittle bones disease.
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