In recent years, conversations around accessibility in India have become more visible. Institutions speak of inclusion, new developments refer to universal design, and public discourse increasingly acknowledges that the built environment must respond to a wider range of users. Yet visibility alone does not transform experience. Many environments that claim to be inclusive remain difficult to use in practice.
The challenge before India is not whether accessibility should exist, but how it should be understood. If it continues to be treated as a matter of compliance or isolated provision, its impact will remain limited. If, however, it is recognised as a design condition — something that shapes how spaces are conceived — then accessibility can fundamentally improve how environments function for everyone.
Recent national discussions, including those that arose in connection with the Rajive Raturi proceedings before the Supreme Court of India and the research initiative Finding Sizes for All developed by the Centre for Disability Studies at NALSAR, have drawn attention to precisely this shift: accessibility must move from token provision to systemic thinking.
This is not a legal transition alone. It is a design transition.
The Limits of “Standard Solutions”
Accessibility is often reduced to a predictable set of features — a ramp, an accessible toilet, a lift, a designated parking space. These elements are necessary, but they are not sufficient. When treated as add-ons, they operate in isolation from the spatial logic of the building.
Consider a large institutional campus. A ramp may exist at the entrance, yet pathways between buildings involve uneven surfaces, long gradients, or unclear direction. A lift may be available, but reaching it requires navigating a confusing sequence of corridors. Facilities may technically meet dimensional standards, yet remain impractical because they are poorly located or disconnected from everyday movement patterns.
The difficulty lies not in the absence of features, but in the absence of continuity.
Standard solutions cannot address environments that are complex, layered, and heavily used. Accessibility must therefore be approached as an organising principle rather than a collection of components.
From Dimensions to Experience
Traditional approaches to accessibility focus on measurements: widths, heights, slopes, and turning radii. These are important, but they describe only the geometry of space, not how space is experienced.
Usability depends on factors that measurements alone cannot resolve:
The distance a person must travel without rest or orientation.
The clarity with which destinations are understood.
The predictability of transitions between indoor and outdoor areas.
The relationship between circulation routes and services.
The ease with which assistance can be sought if required.
An environment may satisfy every prescribed dimension and still be exhausting, disorienting, or exclusionary.
Designing for everyone therefore requires moving beyond the question, “Does it comply?” to the more meaningful one, “Does it work?”
The Indian Built Environment: Scale and Diversity
India presents a uniquely demanding context for accessibility. Developments are often large, multi-functional, and intensely used. Educational campuses accommodate thousands of students; hospitals manage continuous public flow; transport hubs connect diverse populations across long distances.
In such environments, accessibility cannot be inserted retrospectively without creating fragmentation. Each addition risks becoming an isolated adjustment rather than part of a coherent system.
The work emerging from research such as Finding Sizes for All has emphasised that Indian environments must respond to variability — in body types, mobility patterns, climate conditions, and patterns of use. Designing for uniformity in such a context is ineffective; designing for range is essential.
Accessibility as a System, Not an Element
When accessibility is integrated early, it shapes how the entire environment is organised:
Routes are planned as continuous networks rather than disconnected segments.
Entrances align with natural movement rather than requiring detours.
Facilities are placed where they are actually needed.
Landscapes, buildings, and infrastructure function together.
Wayfinding is embedded in spatial clarity rather than dependent on signage alone.
Such integration benefits all users, not only those who identify as persons with disabilities. Older persons, families with children, temporary injuries, and even those carrying luggage experience the environment differently when it is designed with range in mind.
Accessibility, in this sense, becomes synonymous with good planning.
Why Retrofitting Cannot Deliver the Same Outcome
Retrofitting remains necessary for older structures, but it is inherently constrained. Once a building’s structure, levels, and services are fixed, change becomes reactive rather than generative.
Retrofitted environments often reveal tell-tale signs:
Secondary entrances used as accessible routes.
External ramps added without integration into landscape design.
Altered interiors that disrupt circulation.
Facilities that meet standards but feel marginal.
By contrast, when accessibility informs the original design, it is invisible — not because it is absent, but because it is integral.
The Emerging Expectation: Inclusion as Normal Practice
What recent Indian discourse signals is not merely regulatory attention but a cultural expectation that public environments must anticipate diversity. Institutions and developers increasingly recognise that accessibility is tied to credibility, longevity, and public engagement.
Design teams are therefore being asked to think differently:
not how to correct exclusion after construction,
but how to avoid producing it in the first place.
This requires collaboration across disciplines — architecture, planning, engineering, and user experience — rather than delegating accessibility to a late-stage audit.
Designing for Range Rather Than Average
Much conventional design assumes an “average user.” Accessibility challenges this assumption by recognising that no such average exists. Human bodies, abilities, and interactions with space vary widely, and environments must accommodate that variability.
Designing for range does not dilute architectural intent; it strengthens it by making spaces more adaptable, resilient, and humane.
An accessible campus is easier to navigate.
An accessible hospital is less stressful to use.
An accessible transport system is more efficient for everyone.
These outcomes are not specialised benefits. They are indicators of quality.
A Shift in Professional Responsibility
The responsibility for accessibility cannot rest solely on enforcement or audit mechanisms. It must be internalised within design practice itself.
When architects and planners begin to treat accessibility as a parameter equal to structure, climate response, or safety, it ceases to be an external demand and becomes part of professional judgement.
India’s current moment of rapid construction offers an opportunity to make this shift deliberately rather than retrospectively.
Conclusion: From Awareness to Integration
Accessibility in India is no longer an unfamiliar concept. The task now is to translate awareness into environments that function seamlessly for diverse users.
Designing for everyone is not a slogan to be applied at the end of a project. It is a way of thinking that must begin at the first sketch — when decisions are still fluid and inclusion can be embedded without compromise.
If accessibility is considered early, it improves design.
If considered late, it attempts repair.
The choice between those approaches will shape how inclusive India’s future built environment truly becomes.
Suggested Reading
For readers interested in exploring these questions further:
Built environment accessibility guidelines issued by Government of India ministries addressing planning and infrastructure.
Research publications and design studies developed under the Centre for Disability Studies, NALSAR.
International literature on universal design and inclusive spatial planning.
Technical discussions on campus-scale accessibility and transport environment usability.
Comparative studies examining lifecycle outcomes of integrated versus retrofitted accessibility approaches.
