Chennai, May 5 (ANI): Specially-abled persons in Tamil Nadu staged a demonstration on Wednesday to protest the decision of Indian Railways making the disabled-friendly coaches open for general public.

Members of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Handicapped Association went on a hunger strike to protest the move here, demanding that disabled-friendly coaches should be made open for their exclusive use again.

"The Railway Department has converted the reservation coaches (reserved for specially-abled persons) into unreserved coaches (open to general public), which is very unfortunate. This move of the Railway Department is condemnable and we need to see that the railway should retract this, and till then we are not going to give up this fight and we will move forward, and make the whole Railway Department stand still," said Govindakrishnan, member of Federation Of Tamil Nadu Handicapped Association.

Protestors said they are facing problems after the coaches have been made open to everyone.

They rued that they have been protesting for nine months but their representations have not been heeded.

"The specially-disabled coaches with disabled people have suddenly been made into a reservation compartment (where anyone can reserve seats) and we don't want that to be a reservation compartment. We want that as an unreserved compartment for the disabled people, and for this we have been fighting for a very long time, say, for about nine months. We have made several representations and everything has gone into vain. So, till that retraction of the decision comes across we are not going to withdraw our hunger strike. We are going to continue for that," said Deepak, a member of Federation Of Tamil Nadu Handicapped ssociation. (ANI)