EC makes voting accessible for Divyangs

Visakhapatnam: True to the Election Commission's slogan 'accessible elections,' the district administration is considering serious measures to make voting Divyang-friendly this time. The list of facilities for disabled voters includes provision of ramps, wheelchairs at polling locations, an assistant to guide the persons with disabilities (PwDs) at the booths, auto-rickshaw facility to pick and drop from home to polling location and back, Braille-enabled dummy ballot papers for visually-challenged to cast their vote apart from voter slips in Braille script.

In a move to make 4,052 polling booths across the district Divyang-friendly, an additional 2,000 ramps have been facilitated in various constituencies. Training was also given to differently-abled on how to access electronic voting machines.

The awareness drive covered both rural and urban areas wherein the local NGOs extended support to educate the differently-abled across the constituencies. "With a majority of the polling stations have already been enabled with ramps, additional ones have been set up in venues where there was no such arrangement earlier.

PwD voters can now approach their respective polling stations to exercise their franchise comfortably. Auto-rickshaw facility to pick and drop PwDs was not given in the earlier elections. The idea is to encourage 100 per cent turnout of the differently-abled voters," says P Venkateswara Rao, Assistant Director of Welfare of Differently-abled, Transgender and Senior Citizens.

Of the five lakh-odd PwD voters across the State, 44,000-plus are in Visakhapatnam district alone. Officials opine that intensified campaigning could help ensure their complete participation in the polls. "There is a huge response for electioneering from PwDs.

The awareness drive covered both rural and urban areas wherein the local NGOs chipped in to educate the differently-abled across the constituencies. The objective is to create a hassle-free environment for PwDs to cast their vote," says V. Sanyasi Rao, Project Officer of Sarva Shisksha Abhayan (SSA) and nodal officer (Law and Order).

SSA also chipped in to provide training sessions to differently-abled persons, engaging inclusive education resource persons and cluster resource persons. In addition to the existing ones, about 1,200 wheelchairs have been procured for the purpose where the PwDs in need of facility can access it in the polling locations. The awareness drive covered both rural and urban areas wherein the local NGOs chipped in to educate the differently-abled across the district.