HCM City (VNS/VNA)- The smart city which Ho Chi Minh City is converting into should be madeaccessible to people with disabilities, a forum heard in HCM City on October 26.

People with disabilitiescomplain that many public sites in the city remain inaccessible to them. Forinstance, pavements at many places in the downtown area have iron railings,making it difficult for people in wheelchairs and those with visual impairmentto walk through.

Difficulties in travellingaround make people with disabilities reluctant to leave home, and many thusfind it difficult to integrate into society.

Dr Vo Thi Hoang Yen, founder ofthe NGO HCM City Disabilities Research and Capacity Development Centre (DRD),said authorities should keep people with disabilities in mind when creatingsmart cities.

People with disabilities andorganisations they are affiliated to could have suggestions that could beintegrated into the city’s database for the smart city development, she said.

DRD has, for instance,developed a phone application called D-Map which helps people with disabilitiesknow the locations of disabled-friendly community venues such as parks, coffeeshops and public sites.

More than 15,000 public sitesaround the country are now shown in the app.

D.Map was developed with fundingfrom the UNDP and the US Agency for International Development and initialtechnical assistance from Hoa Sen University.

Vu Chi Kien, head of theDepartment of Planning and Architecture’s Architectural Research Centre, saidin the smart city project, cutting-edge technologies have been used to servepeople including those with disabilities.

Lack of physical access to manypublic venues prevents people with disabilities from using publicservices, he said.

“This problem is addressed. Inthe smart city, they can access public services without directly going topublic venues. They could use online administrative procedures.”

Yen suggested that morefunctions aiding people with disabilities should be integrated into theapplications the city is using to develop the smart city.

Dao Thu Huong, a specialist onthe rights of people with disabilities at UNDP Vietnam, said her agency isworking with the DRD and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs toamend laws to create provisions that allow new buildings to open only ifapproved by people with disabilities. 

According to Yen, theadditional cost of building public facilities to make them accessible to peoplewith disabilities is 0-3 percent, but that goes up to 12 percent if they haveto be altered after construction.

The ratio of people withdisabilities is 5-10 percent of the country’s population, equivalent to 6.5 millionpeople./.