Chandigarh: When parking signboards prove problematic

The flaws were detected by road safety expert Harman Sidhu, who lost his capacity to walk in a road accident and uses a wheel chair. Sidhu says, “I was also not aware of the installation of these signboards but two local residents, who are disabled and attempted to park their vehicles near the signboards, told me about these wrong and irrelevant locations of signboards. Some of the signboards were installed at such locations where there is no ramp, no iron railing is installed and there is no space to bring a wheel chair.”

Also, paying no heed to signboards, city residents do not leave the slots vacant.

According to the field survey, one of the signboards was installed near Neelam Theatre in Sector 17 and if a divyang parks his vehicle at this location, he would have to jump over the railing. Another flaw in the same sector was detected in the parking lot near Capital Book Store, in which though a signboard ‘parking for disabled’ was installed, the particular area is a permanent autorickshaw stand and there is no parking available.

Here are some other parking slots where accessibility is a problem:

Sector 37: The signboard was installed at the entry point of market parking. But the access would be blocked if a two-wheeler is parked there.
Sector 23: The ramp is not accessible.