Kathmandu, May 22: Travelling by public vehicles is nearly an ordeal for Govinda Acharya, a blind professor who teaches at the capital’s Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus.

He has the bitter experience that the buses refuse to take him in even when he is ready to pay the fare. Because of this, he is late to classes or sometimes misses them.

“Public buses do not stop when I stop them seeing me blind. I have to wait for a ‘kind-hearted’ driver for long who would take me in. So, I am often late to the college,” he shared. Acharya has to travel in public transport daily to college from Kirtipur where he stays.

Not only this, Acharya said he has hard time while crossing the road. “Sometimes, vehicles would come whizzing when I am crossing the road, producing goose bumps,” says he.

Acharya related about this unpleasant experience at an interaction on problems of public transport users and their resolution organised by the Transport Users Forum here on Saturday.Oftentimes, professor Acharya has also to put up with abusive words of the driver and their helps

“The government, rather than strictly enforcing the provisions of the disability-related Acts and agreements it has reached with the Association of the Blind in the past, has been neglecting the visually-impaired and the disabled,” he resented.

Lawmaker and vice-chairperson of the Rastriya Janamorcha party, Durga Poudel, complained that the number of seats reserved for women in public transport is far too inadequate and that also are mostly occupied by men.

Senior citizen Dr NK Thapa strongly called for strictly implementing the provision of providing concession in transport fare to the senior citizens and people with disabilities throughout the country.

Forum president Ananda Sharma stressed the urgent need of addressing the concerns of the public transport users and transport entrepreneurs and called on the government and bodies concerned to pay attention to resolving this problem. RSS