PANAJI
Flagged off by Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Dessai and State Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities, Guruprasad Pawaskar in the presence of television actress Pooja Bedi the first blind car rally was held in Panaji as part of the ongoing Purple Fest in Panaji on Saturday.
The rally began at INOX courtyard at 10 am traversing around Miramar Circle and making a U-turn at the old Panaji bridge. From there, the route continued down Chogm Road before turning towards Calangute Church and eventually returning back to the starting point. In this first-ever accessible car rally, featuring visually impaired individuals as navigators and braille maps as their guides, making it a historic event when individuals served as drivers in this innovative exercise that displayed the true meaning of interdependence.
State Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities, Guruprasad Pawaskar thanked the Rotary Club of Panaji and the Rotarians who came to be part of this unique Blind Car Rally.
“I’m sure you’ll carry great memories from this Purple Fest. It is a dream come true, as I wanted to organise something like this for years now,” said Pawaskar.
Sujith Kumar, director of Pro Sports, the organizer of rally, said, “The response from participants is very positive and they loved the rally, as 35 cars with 35 drivers participated, along with 40 navigators who came from various parts of the country.
There was one car assigned to a navigator and the navigator was a person with vision disability. The navigator was given a rulebook with rules, directions and speed limits five minutes before the rally.
There was a prescribed route, with caution marks, speed breakers, traffic signals, and crowded places of the route in braille. There were marshals at various locations to the left of the road where the driver had to stop to note marshals the speed and time.
