The meeting of the State Level Steering Committee constituted for easy voting of disabled voters was held under the chairmanship of the Chief Electoral Officer.
Instructions for conducting third party audit to identify the actual availability of essential infrastructure at polling stations
Help of non-governmental and civil-social organizations will be taken to increase the registration of Divyang voters and third gender voters
Raipur. 29 December 2022
The meeting of the State Steering Committee on Accessible Elections, constituted for easy voting for differently-abled voters, was held under the chairmanship of Chief Electoral Officer of Chhattisgarh, Smt. Reena Babasaheb Kangale. In the meeting, he directed the Social Welfare Department and the Directorate of Public Education to facilitate voting for disabled voters. Additional Chief Electoral Officer Mrs. Shikha Rajput Tiwari, Director of Social Welfare Department Mr. Ramesh Kumar Sharma, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Dr. K.R. Singh, Additional Director of Directorate of Public Instruction Shri J.P. Rath and Deputy Director Mr. S.N. Panda was also present in the meeting.
Chief Electoral Officer Smt. Kangale informed the members present in the meeting about the proceedings of the meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Accessible Elections organized by the Election Commission of India on November 24 in New Delhi and the recommendations of the Commission. Gave. He sought suggestions from the members of the State Level Steering Committee to chalk out an action plan for the easy voting of voters with disabilities (PwDs) in the upcoming assembly elections-2023 in Chhattisgarh.
Smt. Kangale directed the officers of Social Welfare Department and Directorate of Public Education to provide essential basic facilities at the polling booths in the upcoming elections for smooth voting. He asked to organize a special camp in collaboration with the Health and Family Welfare Department to provide medical certificate of disability to the identified disabled voters. He directed to organize training program at the district level to mark polling center-wise of differently-abled voters and get their names entered in the server so that the names of differently-abled voters can be entered in the voter list in an error-free manner.
In the meeting, the Chief Electoral Officer asked the Social Welfare Department to organize special camps at the district level for the identification of disabled voters as well as third gender citizens above 18 years of age and registration in the voter list. He asked to take cooperation of non-governmental and civil-social organizations (NGOs/CSOs) and volunteers working for the welfare of the third gender community in this work. He directed to send voice messages to the visually impaired voters to give necessary information related to voting, obtain their mobile numbers at the time of identification of each visually impaired voters and share them with the Chief Electoral Officer’s office. Seeing the problem of communication between deaf-mute disabled voters and polling personnel, he asked to prepare a short film and share it with the Chief Electoral Officer’s office so that it can be shared with the members of the polling party and the security personnel deployed at the polling stations.
Smt. Kangale asked to take cooperation of non-governmental and civil-social organizations working for their welfare to facilitate easy voting of disabled voters. He directed the Director of the Social Welfare Department to prepare a list of such institutions at the district level. He told Joint Chief Electoral Officer Dr. K.R. Singh to organize divisional level workshop with these institutions. The Chief Electoral Officer informed in the meeting that as per the instructions of the Election Commission of India, the websites of all the District Election Officers have to be made PwDs friendly. In this regard, instructions have already been issued to all the districts. He directed the Social Welfare Department to check the websites of all district election officers and issue certificates. He directed the Joint Chief Electoral Officer to take necessary action regarding giving special awards to the officers-employees doing good work towards ensuring smooth voting on National Voters’ Day.
Chief Electoral Officer Smt. Kangale instructed the officials of Directorate of Public Education to conduct third party audit in the steering committee meeting to mark the actual availability of essential infrastructure facilities ensured at the polling stations. He asked to organize special camps at the school level to prepare the list of students above 17 years of age studying in the schools and to apply in advance for registration in the voter list. He also gave instructions for special training of selected students of NSS and NCC for the cooperation of differently-abled voters and senior voters at polling booths.
