Need six months to make metro stations fully disabled friendly, Chennai Metro Rail tells Madras High Court

Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) on Monday, July 1, 2024, told the Madras High Court that it would require at least six months time to make all 32 stations that are currently operational under Phase I of the project, fully compliant with the harmonised guidelines and standards for universal accessibility.

Appearing before the first Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq, Advocate General P.S. Raman said, he did not want to consider a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by disability rights activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar an adversarial litigation, since it was for a public cause.

He informed the court of having had talks with the top officials of CMRL and said the Managing Director had assured him that they would retrofit all 32 stations to make them fully disabled friendly within the next six months and would include the PIL petitioner too, in the discussions.

The A-G said the first metro train in the city starts at 5.30 a.m. daily and the last train is operated at 11 p.m. Stating that one hour would be required for maintenance work before commencing and ending the daily operations, he said any civil work in the stations could be carried out only between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. He said, the MD had promised to deploy as many labourers as possible to work during those four hours to make all 32 stations fully compliant with the harmonised guidelines within six months. He added that some alternatives need to be found in lieu of major structural changes to the stations.

Mr. Raman stated that if those structural changes had be carried out, then all the 32 stations in phase I would have to be closed down for a month or two putting commuters to great hardship. He said, CMRL was willing to hold discussisions with the PIL petitioner to find viable solutions.

Citing an example, the A-G said, the gap between the platforms and the trains at some places was a major concern for which a right solution had to be arrived at. He told the court that these issues were being addressed at the construction stage itself in the metro stations being constructed under phase II.

Even in phase I, dedicated personnel had been deployed in all 32 stations to assist passengers with disabilities to board the trains. “Fortunately we are able to manage with one person in each station because the average disabled users of CMRL is only between 10.3 to 12 persons per day,” the A-G said.

On the other hand, the petitioner’s counsel said a second access audit report of the existing metro stations had reported only 40% compliance of the harmonised guidelines and said, nothing much had happened despite repeated assurances given by CMRL to the court with respect to retrofitting those stations.

He also insisted on conducting an access audit of the construction plans of stations being built under phase II. The ACJ asked the litigant to hold discussions with the CMRL officials in order to come up with viable solutions to the issue. He directed the Registry to list the PIL petition after four weeks.