As the nation gears up for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been on a journey to implement some pathbreaking initiatives aimed toward guaranteeing accessibility and comfort for all voters.
Further, consistent with the imaginative and prescient, the Jharkhand election official on Sunday introduced the implementation of special measures for over 6.82 lakh electors aged above 80 years and these with disabilities in Jharkhand.
Elaborating on the main points of the measures to be carried out, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Jharkhand, Ok Ravi Kumar, stated that beneath the motto ‘no voter to be left behind’, the state has carried out a number of measures for elderly and PwD voters, which embody voting from home, free transportation to polling stations, the set up of ramps, the supply of wheelchairs, and using Braille-enabled digital voting machines (EVMs).
“Persons with disabilities and elderly voters above 80 years old can avail themselves of the pick-up and drop-off facility as per their wishes. A vehicle at each polling station is being arranged for this purpose. The booth-level officers (BLOs) are compiling a list of voters who want to exercise polling at their doorsteps,” Kumar stated.
Furthermore, the election official introduced an inbuilt Braille facility within the poll items this time for visually impaired voters to determine their most popular get together symbols simply. “This facility is enabled in all M3 electronic voting machines in Jharkhand. Earlier, there were M2 machines in which we had to paste Braille stickers,” he stated.
Moreover, along with the implementation of the pathbreaking initiatives, the Election Commission has additionally designed an software referred to as Saksham. The app goals to facilitate requests for pick-up and drop-off services and different amenities on polling day.
“The application also has the feature to register requests for wheelchairs or other facilities on the polling day,” Kumar added.
It is pertinent to notice that, among the many 2.55 crore eligible voters in Jharkhand, round 3.22 lakh are over 80 years outdated, whereas practically 3.60 lakh have disabilities. This consists of round 63,000 visually impaired voters and 45,000 with speech and listening to impairments. Additionally, there are roughly 1.39 lakh electors above 85 years outdated.
(With inputs from PTI)
