Is India moving forward?

Is India moving forward? May be this question has been asked umpteenth number of time. Some people say YES and some people say NO (though the number is very less). In my opinion the answer is definitely YES. But on the flip side, there are areas, which haven't yet seen the proper light of progress. India's GDP is growing at the rate of 8% -9%. The purchasing power of Indian has increased too many folds. On the infrastructure front, though the progress is not substantial, India is slowly trying to come up to speed. But one of the many areas, which is still kept under dark, is the facility for the physically Challenged people. Just think about the scenario, which you have encountered a decade ago in terms of facility provided to the physically challenged people. The scenario has not changed a bit other than implementing reservation here and there for this group. Walking on the road is becoming a nightmare for a normal man with two eyes. You need to walk on the road as we don't have the facility of footpath in many places. You need to be extra careful while walking on road because the vehicles can come from any direction other than above and below. If you are ecstatic to see a footpath on some road, it may have been blocked by shopkeepers by keeping the goods. This may be called proper utilization of space! Sometimes you can see that vehicles are also parked here. May be we are all habituated to see all these things and we are not worried anymore on these things. There are many more things to be worried about. But have we ever thought that how the blinds will cope up with this problem. We have reserved jobs for the physically challenged people but we have put a big barrier on their way to survive. There are cities, where you can see that the buses are stopping in the middle of the roads to off-board passengers and then the passengers are making a criss-cross to come back to the designated bus stop. Once I experienced that one lame person was off-boarded in the middle of the road and he was having a tough time to go back to the bus stop.

As India is moving forward, it should not ignore this minority group. The hallmark of any developed country is associated with the fact that how it is facilitating the entire population to live their life. You need not to go far. Just close by Singapore is a good example of how the entire system can be organized to smoothen the life of this minority group. If we take the example of MRT, which is the main transport of Singapore, the danger line, Train door, Lift passage every things are marked to facilitate a blind person.

India is undoubtedly a developing country but we need to go miles to rank ourselves at the same position of a developed country. 

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