Malaysiakini report:
Disabled rights activist Anthony Thanasayan said Prasarana Malaysia Bhd has been in constant communication with him over the accessibility of facilities at the newly-opened Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line.
"After that day, they have been in non-stop communication (with me), they have been updating me.
"They have been very friendly, absolutely nothing negative," Thanayasan told Malaysiakini today.
This came after he and several other disabled rights activists visited the MRT line on Wednesday to test whether the stations and MRT trains were accessible to people with physical disabilities.
They had given the MRT stations a thumbs down on the accessibility of its facilities, pointing to cars without disability parking permits parked at spaces reserved for disabled people, lack of audio cues in the station's lifts and sizable gaps between the station platform and the train, among other things.
Thanasayan, who is also NGO Petpositive president, said today that Prasarana had already apologised and promised that they would take action against cars without disability parking permits which had parked at the parking spots reserved for disabled people.
"That is a good thing, if that is true, because now they are only promising.
"I hope this continues and I won't believe everything they say until I see for myself.
"They are also curious to know what else (they can improve), some of the things that need to be done.
"They just want to learn, they want to do something about it," he said.
However, he also lamented that even after almost two decades of raising awareness about the disabled, he found it shocking that corporations had yet to learn to deal with disabled issues, including how to treat the disabled.
Despite that, he appeared satisfied with the speed with which Prasarana had responded to their complaints and their seeming sincerity in improving the accessibility of their facilities and training of their staff.
In a Facebook post, he posted a conversation he had with a Prasarana employee who had contacted him over his concerns.
"Your feedback on our colleague does not reflect the values we abide to.
"We will take the necessary corrective measure and re-educate our employees as an organisation that values respect and appreciate human diversity through our words and actions," the employee, identified only as Khairin from Prasarana's digital team, said in the message.
Thanasayan said a Prasarana "higher-up" intends to speak to him about this issue soon as a follow-up to that conversation.
He intends to engage with them further and assist them in getting everything in proper working order for the good of all disabled public transport passengers in the country, he said.
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