An accessibility audit conducted by the Punjab University a few months ago revealed shocking details of apathy towards people with physical disabilities: of 99 buildings that were surveyed, none was found to have facilities that would aid people with different degrees of disabilities. Additionally, the university campus lacked Braille signages, pavements and tactile paving.

Earlier this year, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s office found “pre-access audits” on 80 percent of public buildings were not conducted before retrofitting them to make them accessible by persons with disabilities (PwDs). This failure was noticed even as the central government’s Accessible Indian Campaign, launched some nine years ago, ensured that at least 50 percent of public buildings across all state capitals were to be made fully accessible for PwDs by June 2022.