Visually impaired friendly footpath in lakecity

Suraj Hazare Dahal
Jul 20, 2019
footpath 2

Walking on the footpath of Siddhartha chowk-BP chowk and Newroad section of Pokhara will soon going to be easy for visually impaired person like Tek Bahadur Thapa. Thapa who is a Social Studies teacher in Kudahar basic school had no knowledge about the tactile pavement which is under construction. The correspondent took him and his friend, Bhim Gurung to the some completed part of the footpath and they began to feel with their hands and cane sticks. The duo smiled and said that soon it will be easy for them to walk on footpath without hurdles.

The yellow coloured ‘tactile’ pavements have block tiles and bars in the middle  to serve as indicators to make it easy for the visually impaired to detect them with the help of a walking white cane. According to sub-engineer of metro-city, Netra Timilsina, the total budget allocated to built the pavement is RS 10 million. The ‘smart’ pavement is being built by Asian concrete pvt.ltd of Bhairahawa.

Out of the total expenses, 60% will be borne by Pokhara metro city office and 40% by the building company itself as a promotion. The construction site is headed by civil engineer, Mohan Gautam. He said, “The total length of the pavement will be 888 meters and breadth 2 meters.”  Till date, 650 meters tactile have been paid.