New Delhi: The two-day National Level Consultations on Accessible Elections organized by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in New Delhi drew to a close today. During the concluding session, the Chief Election Commissioner Shri Om Prakash Rawat launched the distribution of Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) with Braille features for visually challenged voters by handing them over to two of the recipients. Later, he announced that such cards would be distributed to all visually challenged voters across the country.
The CEC Shri O.P. Rawat announced that the Commission has decided to establish auxiliary polling stations for the People with Disabilities (PwDs) during elections. He said Disability Coordinators would be appointed at the levels of Assembly Constituencies, Districts and States. He informed that a mobile app would be developed in-house for the PwDs to facilitate them participate fully in election processes. He said, they would be permitted to avail public transport along with their attendants on the day of polling. The ECI would make available all its election related awareness materials in accessible formats for the PwDs. The photo voter slips would also be made in accessible formats for them. For the use of the hearing impaired voters, sign language windows will be established in all audio-visual training and awareness contents of the Commission. He announced that a new unit called Accessible Division would be established in the ECI-run International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Management (IIDEM) in New Delhi. Accessibility Master Trainers would also be employed to provide cascaded trainings for the welfare of the PwDs, he added. He stated that a follow up of the actions taken based on the recommendations made during the National Consultations on Accessible Elections would take place in the next three months.
The Election Commissioner Shri Sunil Arora in his address said, “We should go far beyond the bureaucratic measures to overcome the barriers. Technology has the capability to fill the gaps and it shall be explored to its fullest potential.
The Election Commissioner Shri Ashok Lavasa remarked that the set of recommendations received from the Consultations will be examined thoroughly and efforts will be made to implement them in a time bound manner.
The deliberations held during the two day consultation resulted in a comprehensive “Strategic Framework on Accessible Elections” to help in making electoral processes more accessible in the forthcoming State and Lok Sabha Elections. The Framework includes 14 important parameters like Identification of Barriers and respective solutions, Voter registration and polling, Inclusive Voter Education, Leveraging Technology for Accessible Elections, Research and Knowledge Sharing, Role of Partner Departments, Educational Institutions, CSOs, Volunteers and Media, Training and sensitisation of Staff, Alternative Voting Methods, Legislative Initiatives and Special four tiered Committees on Accessible Elections.
The Commission unveiling Strategic Framework on Accessible Elections
The Consultation was the culmination of more than 3-month long series of District and State Level Workshops undertaken as a part of ECI’s theme for the year- 2018, Accessible Elections-to identify barriers/gaps in the inclusion of PwDs in the electoral process, assess the present accessibility policies in place and put forward recommendations for addressing barriers to enhance the participation of the differently-abled.
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Shri Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner Shri Sandeep Saxena, Director General Shri Dhirendra Ojha, Director Ms Padma Angmo were among the other participants in the event.
