MBPJ reaches out to help the disabled

Saturday February 20, 2010


MBPJ reaches out to help the disabled
By TAN KARR WEI

MALAYSIA would move towards having more barrier-free places only when local authorities start taking the initiative, Petaling Jaya city councillor Anthony Thanasayan said.

Thanasayan, who also chairs the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) OKU (disabled people) technical committee, said the council had been making headway in turning Petaling Jaya into a barrier-free city.

“Before this, the disabled community did not even have a platform to voice our concerns. Now, we have a technical committee that is working closely with the town planning department to make Petaling Jaya more accessible.

“One thing that we realised was that Malaysians won’t change their attitudes if the local councils do not implement guidelines for barrier-free accessibility,” Thanasayan said.
Big plans: Sharipah (left) looking at the brochure with Thanasayan (second from left) as Petpositive committee member Antony Leopold and Independent Living and Training Centre president Francis Siva (right) also have a closer look at it.

He added that there had been a lot of changes in MBPJ including the introduction of universal designs for facilities.

MBPJ town planning director Sharipah Marhaini Syed Ali said the council had organised several workshops to discuss the technical guidelines and had even invited representatives from the other local councils in Selangor to take part.

Sharipah said the participation from the private sector was much needed to make Petaling Jaya barrier-free.

“We will ensure that developers of new projects would follow the guidelines. Our engineering department is also aware that they too need people with technical know-how for MBPJ’s own projects,” she said.

She said the council was also working on area-based projects to put in place facilities in stages and would try to have a more integrated approach between the various departments like engineering and landscaping.

So far, some of the areas that have been upgraded and equipped with disabled-friendly facilities like tactile blocks and ramps are Section 52, SS2, Jalan Gasing, PJS5 and PJS6.

“We would also be coming up with a technical guideline for Section 13, which will be turned into a commercial area,” she said.

She said for areas like PJS5 and PJS6 which had to undergo upgrading work anyway, it would cost an additional 10 to 20% more to upgrade to disabled-friendly facilities.

Thanasayan also lauded the MBPJ for printing a brochure that listed the services provided by the council for the disabled like the OKU Transit and OKU parking stickers.

There were also several activities like workshops and seminars lined up for the year.

The brochures would be available at the MBPJ headquarters in Jalan Yong Shook Lin and would also be distributed through the state Social Welfare Department (JKM).