As part of the ongoing initiative of the district administration to provide barrier-free environment in government offices and schools in the district, arrangements are under way to ensure that all polling booths in the district are disabled-friendly ahead of the polling day on May 16.
Preparations are on to construct permanent ramps in all the polling booths in the district to ensure hassle-free access for physically challenged voters to polling booths to cast their votes. Provisional disability census shows disabled people in Kannur account for 2.3 per cent of population
The plan is being expedited as an extension of the district administration’s project to provide the barrier-free facilities including ramps with handrails, lifts and signage in government offices in the district.
The polling booths in the district being mostly schools, construction of the ramps is undertaken as part of the project.
“Of the total 1,629 polling booths in the district, nearly 1,000 booths already have permanent ramps,” said District Collector and District Electoral Officer P. Bala Kiran.
He told The Hindu that works for constructing the ramps in the remaining polling booths will be completed ahead of the polling day.
The Collector also said that the standard slope for the ramps that have been constructed and are under construction is 1:10 as ramps with higher slope are of no use for the disabled.
As per the Election Commission’s direction, temporary ramps should be arranged in polling booths where there are no permanent ramps.
Election officials here also said that wide publicity will be organised to help visually-impaired electors to use Braille signage on the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
On the EVMs a numeric sticker in Braille denoting the serial numbers of the candidates allows the visually-impaired voters to cast their votes. Copies of dummy ballot sheet in Braille will be used to sensitize such voters, they said.
Popularising use of Braille-enabled EVMs among the visually-impaired voters is relevant in the context of the allegation that the facility of open votes for the disabled, especially the blind, is being misused in the district by some political workers to resort to electoral malpractices.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) here has already alleged that the LDF here is manipulating the facility. Large number of voters opting open vote facility do so by declaring that they are visually-impaired, UDF leaders say adding that there were cases in the past where significantly large number of voters in a single booth opted the open vote facility.
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