The meeting agenda included discussion of the draft programmes for the republics of Dagestan, North Ossetia-Alania, the Chechen Republic, the Trans-Baikal, Kamchatka and Krasnodar territories, Vladimir, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kemerovo and Smolensk regions, and St. Petersburg.
“In 2013, 12 regions have already started implementing accessible environment programmes,” said Deputy Labour Minister Alexei Vovchenko, chairman of the Coordinating Council. “Some 340 million roubles have been allocated for their co-financing. In 2014 and 2015 the funding will be increased significantly to 4.2 and 4.5 billion roubles, respectively.”
Mr Vovchenko said that draft programmes from 76 regions were submitted for consideration by the Coordinating Council.
“The programmes will be examined at the Ministry and discussed at Coordinating Council meetings over the span of a year,” he said.
Delegates from the regions whose draft programmes were discussed at the meeting spoke about on-going and planned ways to create a barrier-free environment for the disabled in various spheres of life: education, healthcare, culture, social security and sport.
Regional draft accessible environment programmes seek to create conditions for various categories of disabled persons to be able to lead full lives. Consequently, this means equipping buildings with lifts and ramps for the wheelchair-bound, guide rails and signs in Braille for the vision-impaired, and illuminated signs for the hearing-impaired.
Draft regional programmes also focused on the issue of transport accessibility for people with disabilities. Regional programmes provide for the purchase of low-floor buses and trolley buses, specially-equipped train cars adapted to the needs of people with disabilities and social-services taxis.
Following the meeting of the Coordinating Council, it was decided to support and endorse all the draft programmes as a whole. The regions were recommended to finalise the draft programmes, taking feedback into account, and submit them for re-examination to the Ministry of Labour.
Source: Ministry of Labour
