By Geetha Iyengar
Handicapped people who wish to have a darshan of the Lord at Kapali Temple recently attempted to highlight the lack of access facilities here. Mylapore police did not allow them to demonstrate.
They said that a temple which has been awarded the ISO 9001:2008 certification should have made this a disabled friendly place.
Temple managers seem to have made note of this issue.
R. Selvaraj, Executive Officer of the temple says that a wheelchair is available at the office and can be used to wheel around the aged, sick or handicapped devotees.
“But it is not practical to have a permanent ramp at the main entrance as the doors have to be shut at night,” he adds.
“There are 5 steps to be negotiated and when there are crowds we have to see that this does not hamper the movement of other devotees. At best there can be a removable ramp that can be placed whenever one requests for it. Even at the other sannidhis it is not possible to construct permanent ramps in these old temples as space is often limited at the entrance,” he adds.
The EO says that 8 such removable ramps have been ordered – these have been donated by industrialist Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti. “We will see how this arrangement works and then decide on the next move,” the officer says.
So who should physically challenged persons approach to request the wheel chair?
“The person who mans the ticket counter at the main entrance is the one to be approached. A board to this effect will be placed soon. This will not be done on Pradosham days. We have seen many people helping such physically challenged devotees and so long as there is this co-operation there will be no problem”.
Click here to see the news report on the protest that was held earlier.
