CHENNAI: Wheelchair basketball is a nascent sport in India, with the official Indian Wheelchair Basketball Federation (WBFI) formed just over three years earlier. Though the sport has been popular among the veterans of armed forces, challenges encountered while pursuing it are many. The severe lack of wheelchair accessibility during trials or camps and creating awareness about the sport among persons with disability have been WBFI’s main concerns.
Ahead of the fifth national championship that was conducted from September 20 to 23 in Erode, president Madhavi Latha and secretary general Kalyani Rajaram covered 19 states in a span of five months to reach out to this section of people. That included making a mark in Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa for the first time.
The lack of accessibility when it comes to accommodation, transportation and restrooms constantly hinder the players and the northeast state also faced the same issue. “Every state has different problems,” says Kalyani. “In Guwahati, the stadium was not wheelchair-friendly. The sports body said, for the first time persons with disabilities were coming to the stadium and they regretted not being making it accessible to them. We don’t wait for it to become accessible.
We go there and make it happen. Nobody could enter the washroom there. The sports body was willing to provide us with volunteers but no player will prefer to be lifted by someone from morning to night.” The WBFI currently has 40 wheelchairs with each costing nearly `40,000. Due to the lack of manufacturers, they are imported from the United Kingdom.
With the majority of the players coming from the financially disadvantaged background, owning a wheelchair that is on par with international standards has never been easy. Hence, during the workshop, the WBFI also provide them wheelchair to get more people involved .
“Only when we were able to provide them with equipment during camps, they showed keen interest since many of them could not afford this. You require an indoor court, a sports wheelchair, and a coach to train them.
There is a huge gap between India and other developed countries in this sport because they could provide a better wheelchair which requires less human effort. But we cannot,” Kalyani remarked. That apart, Kalyani says that the biggest impediment to their progress is lack of awareness. “Recently we had gone to Punjab. We did not face any issue with the facilities. Toilets were accessible, wash basins were within their reach. We didn’t put up a ramp anywhere.
They even had a nutritionist to make sure their diet is taken care. But, the issue that we faced was identifying players. In spite of talking to the paralympic committee and Person with Disabilities committee, we could get only 20 people, with some of them coming from rehabilitation centres.” The next major task for the WBFI is forming state associations. Kalyani reveals that 10 states have already approached them and the federation is hopeful that forming state units will help them draw more people to the sport.