An audit of more than 120 public parks in Bengaluru has exposed a basic contradiction in the city’s shared public realm: parks may be available on a map, but many remain difficult or impossible to enter and use independently. Only 34.8% of the surveyed parks allowed wheelchair users to enter without encountering a barrier, according to findings published through the Bengaluru Parks Observatory, an interactive dashboard created by Pacta.
The findings matter because accessibility is not limited to whether a park has an entrance gate. It depends on a chain of conditions that begins outside the park and continues through its paths, toilets, drinking-water points, play areas, signs and maintenance. A broken or obstructed route can turn a public facility into a nominal amenity—one that exists for the city but is not equally usable by its residents.
Pacta, a Bengaluru-based law firm and policy think tank, conducted the audit between June and July with the help of volunteers. The volunteers physically visited the parks and assessed them against a common checklist covering entrances, pathways, signage, play areas, maintenance, facilities and operations. Each submission was geotagged and mapped to its municipal corporation, creating a city-level record rather than a collection of anecdotal complaints.
The most immediate gap appears at the point of entry. Only 36.2% of the surveyed parks had a ramp at the entrance, while 46.4% had a step-free main entrance. These figures indicate that the formal presence of a park does not necessarily translate into access for a wheelchair user. An entrance may exist, but a step, uneven surface or unsuitable ramp can still prevent independent entry.
The path inside the park presents a more mixed picture. Around 62% of the parks had pathways considered smooth enough for independent wheelchair use. About 71% were free of obstructions such as parked vehicles, vendors or debris. That leaves a substantial share where the quality or usability of movement may be compromised by surface conditions or encroachment. For a visitor using a wheelchair, a pathway is not a minor design detail: it determines whether the park can be navigated without assistance.
The audit also shows that accessibility is closely tied to the everyday management of public space. A physically unobstructed route can become unusable if vehicles, vendors or debris occupy it. This makes maintenance and operations as important as the original construction of ramps and paths. The checklist’s inclusion of these categories is significant because it treats accessibility as an ongoing municipal responsibility rather than a one-time infrastructure feature.
Basic facilities are particularly limited. Only 29.5% of the surveyed parks had toilets, and just 61% of those toilets were accessible. In practical terms, the availability of a toilet within a park cannot be assumed even before its usability for people with disabilities is considered. Handwashing facilities were present in only 5.4% of the parks, while drinking water was available in 10.9%.
These numbers reveal a broader weakness in how public parks are often understood. A park is commonly evaluated through its landscaping, open area, play equipment or visual appearance. The audit instead measures whether people can spend time there with dignity and reasonable independence. Without toilets, water and handwashing facilities, the usable duration of a visit is constrained for many residents, including people with disabilities, older people, children and caregivers.
Signage offers another example of the difference between visibility and usability. Around 81.9% of the surveyed parks had entrance signage, but only 10.6% had a park map. An entrance sign may identify a park, but a map can help users understand its layout, locate facilities and plan a route. The gap between the two suggests that information about a park’s existence is more common than information that helps people navigate it.
The audit found play equipment in about 73% of the parks. Of that equipment, 75.5% could be used at least partly across ability levels. This is one of the stronger results in the survey, but the wording also points to a limitation: partial usability is not the same as fully inclusive play. A child’s ability to reach a play area, move through it and participate in an activity depends on the relationship between equipment, paths, surfaces and supervision.
The Bengaluru Parks Observatory brings these findings into a format that can support more detailed accountability. According to Pacta, it is India’s first citizen-audited accessibility dashboard for public parks. The data is geotagged and mapped to the relevant municipal corporation, allowing accessibility to be considered at the level of individual parks and administrative jurisdictions. The organisation said the observatory will remain a continuously updated record, supported by citizens and volunteers.
That design gives the dashboard a role beyond publication of a one-time survey. A static audit can identify a problem, but a continuously updated record can show whether a ramp has been repaired, an obstruction removed, a toilet made accessible or a missing facility added. The supplied findings do not establish whether such changes have already begun, but they create a baseline against which future conditions can be compared.
The municipal mapping is also important because responsibility for public parks is institutional, not abstract. The audit records the parks against their municipal corporation, making it possible to connect individual conditions to the agencies responsible for planning, maintenance and operations. It also gives residents, funders and city authorities a common reference point when deciding which gaps require attention.
Pacta founder Nivedita Krishna described the audit as an “honest starting point” and said the data should be treated as “a common map rather than a verdict”. That framing is consistent with the evidence: the survey does not show that every park is inaccessible, nor does it establish a single cause for the gaps. It shows that accessibility performance varies across multiple components of the public-park experience, with particularly weak results for step-free entry, sanitation, handwashing, drinking water and park maps.
The findings also illustrate why public-space policy cannot be separated from street-level implementation. A park may have a ramp but still be inaccessible if the approach is blocked. It may have play equipment but lack a usable route to it. It may display an entrance sign but provide no map or clear information about facilities. Accessibility therefore depends on a connected system of design, maintenance, information and daily enforcement.
For Bengaluru, the central urban question is not simply how many parks the city has, but who can use them without assistance, uncertainty or loss of dignity. Public parks are among the few shared spaces where residents can spend time without paying for entry or consumption. If access varies sharply according to mobility, age or ability, the city’s public realm becomes formally open but functionally unequal.
The audit does not provide a citywide assessment of every park, and the findings apply to the more than 120 parks visited by volunteers between June and July. It also does not, in the supplied material, specify the municipal response or a timetable for corrective action. What it does provide is a measurable baseline: only about one in three surveyed parks offered barrier-free entry for wheelchair users, while essential supporting facilities were far less common.
The next phase will depend on whether the observatory’s data is used as an operational record rather than only as a public-interest report. Pacta said the dashboard will continue to be updated with citizen and volunteer participation. That continuing record will show whether Bengaluru’s parks move from nominal availability towards practical, dignified access for all residents.
