Bhubaneswar: The state government intends to make smaller hotels and restaurants disabled-friendly.

The move comes after the government pushed for the same for public buildings and commercial highrises.

The initiative will be taken up as part of the Accessible India campaign of the Centre where efforts are being made to retrofit facilities that are not accessible for the persons with disabilities. The authorities are also taking steps to include the disable-friendly infrastructure in the new buildings. Although the government had made disabled-friendly infrastructure mandatory for commercial highrises and other buildings, there was no such provision for smaller hotels and restaurants.

"We are making public and private facilities - especially buildings and parks - disabled-friendly in line with the directions of the Union government. Recently, we received another instruction to adopt similar measures for the restaurants and hotels," said an official of housing and urban development department.

He said the civic body and the development authorities had been intimated about the instruction and asked to take steps to comply with the same.

"We have directed them to conduct a survey of the facilities and asked the owners of the restaurants and owners to have disable-friendly infrastructure in place," said the official.

The owner of the facilities will have to ensure separate provisions for people using wheelchairs and crutches. The facilities will also be friendly to people with hearing and sight impairment.

"We made our office buildings accessible for persons with disability with installation of ramps and tactile. We replicated the same at other recreational places such as parks and community centres. This time, we will do the same for restaurants and smaller hotels. We will make plans for it," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.