Kochi (TAN): Kerala is promoting the beach at Alappuzha (or Allepey) as the first disabled-friendly beach in the country.
The state’s tourism department has built a 50-metre ramp on one side of the beach and set up signage in Braille. Audio-visual aids have also been made available apart from automatic wheelchairs.
The government has spent INR 58 lakh on this, a newsletter of Kerala Tourism said.
“Kerala will be the first state to become a barrier-free tourism destination by January 2019,” Kerala Tourism director P. Bala Kiran said. “To make the tourist destinations barrier-free, we have now got Rs 90 million for 125 major destinations. All the 14 districts in Kerala have taken up projects and Alappuzha completed the work early this month.”
Wheelchair taxi service in Goa
Enable Travel, a travel company serving people with mobility issues, has joined hands with Ezy Mov, India’s first point-to-point wheelchair taxi service provider, to offer guided tours in wheelchair taxis. Five such vehicles will be run in the first phase this month.
Debolina Sen, Head, Enable Travel said that Goa serves as one of the most popular Indian travel destinations for both domestic and international tourists, but lack of transport facilities for people with mobility issues, including elderly travellers, makes them unable to experience it in its broadest sense.
“To ensure barrier-free travel and enhance transportation within a destination, we have partnered with EZY Mov who are experienced to address this need. We are very proud to be continuing our commitment to make travel easy and hassle-free in India and working with like-minded partners to create an inclusive and accessible travel environment,” she said.
Speaking about the partnership, Bennet D’cunha, Co-founder and CEO, Ezy Mov said, “Ezy Mov and Enable Travel are the first movers on the accessible transportation and travel space on our country. Hence, we share the common vision of providing end-to-end assistance to our customers, travelling from all over the world into India and Goa in particular. This service will also be available for the local population to meet their healthcare and social needs.”
