Kerala tourism director Kiran a champion of accessibility

The Times of India reports that in line with its policy of “bar­ri­er-free tour­ism”, the Ker­ala tour­ism depart­ment will make all its facil­it­ies, includ­ing parks and hotels, “dis­abled-friendly” before tak­ing on the private sector.

The Dir­ect­or, P Bala Kir­an, said: “The cur­rent scen­ario in these des­tin­a­tions is not that encour­aging. We are yet to do a sur­vey of the parks which do not have the facil­it­ies required to give smooth access to dis­abled people, or take estim­ates. But, we hope to do that in a month’s time.”

Before issu­ing guidelines to private tour­ism oper­at­ors to ensure access to people, the gov­ern­ment needs to set examples for them to fol­low, Kir­an reckons.

Kir­an has form. As Dis­trict Col­lect­or of Kan­nur (Can­nanore), he ensured all 2,800 gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions were made bar­ri­er-free. (A Dis­trict Col­lect­or is the officer in charge of rev­en­ue col­lec­tion and admin­is­tra­tion with­in a dis­trict.) The pro­ject attrac­ted nation­al recog­ni­tion and a Pres­id­ent’s medal in Decem­ber 2016.

When Kir­an later became the Dir­ect­or of Social Justice for the state, he exten­ded his access­ib­il­ity pro­ject to four more dis­tricts, “for which alloc­a­tions have been ear­marked in the budget”.

Dir­ect­or or Tour­ism in Ker­ala, P Bala Kir­an, has a track record in mak­ing his state access­ible for all.

Now, hav­ing moved to the tour­ism depart­ment, Kir­an wants to con­tin­ue his work.

Prin­cip­al Sec­ret­ary of Tour­ism, V Venu, said: “Ker­ala is a state which has already pion­eered itself in adopt­ing approaches that make the des­tin­a­tions more inclus­ive and respons­ible. This ini­ti­at­ive should not be seen in isol­a­tion, but as part of our over­all respons­ible tour­ism movement.”

“We have the respons­ib­il­ity to cater to the needs of trav­el­lers who are phys­ic­ally chal­lenged and aged as well. There’s no mar­ket­ing angle to it, but it is part of our respons­ib­il­ity,” Venu added.

Access­ible tour­ism was the theme of World Tour­ism Day 2016.