Blue Flag beach in Puri not disabled-friendly, say visitors
BHUBANESWAR: Tourists with disabilities have expressed displeasure at lack of facilities for them at newly opened Blue Flag beach in Puri. Installation of disabled-friendly amenities was one of the criteria for getting the Blue Flag certification.
“I was amazed at the Blue Flag beach’s beauty and cleanliness. But I had a bitter experience when I tried to go close to shore in my wheelchair. One of the 33 benchmarks of getting the Blue Flag status, awarded by the Copenhagen-based Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), was provision of easy access to the beach to physically challenged persons like me,” Jitendra Kumar Biswal, a cine actor and disability rights activist said.
The FEE had accorded Blue Flag certification to 900-metre Golden Beach from Digabareni to Mayfair Hotel on October 11. It is Odisha’s first Blue Flag beach with the state government promoting it in a big way to attract more tourists, mostly foreigners.
Tourists said the Puri district administration has kept a beach wheelchair (mobi-chair) for physically challenged persons. They alleged the mobi-chair was not at all convenient for them.
“When the district administration was re-developing the Blue Flag beach, I had proposed creation of a dedicated pathway or placing of a hard mat on the beach to enable wheelchairs to roll from the entrance gate to the shore. But the administration ignored the proposal,” Biswal said.
Chandan Paikaray, another tourist with disabilities, said he saw the sea from a distance as his wheelchair could not reach the shore. “I had heard a lot about the Blue Flag beach and came with my family from Rourkela on Saturday. After failing to go to the shore, I made my wheelchair roll on the pedestrian track on the beach and watched at the sea,” Paikaray said.
The district administration said they would try to purchase more beach wheelchairs. “At present, we have two mobi-chairs for the physically handicapped tourists. We will explore the feasibility of putting an access mat on the beach,” a district official said.