Entire process from Enrolment to Elections needs to be made more PwD Friendly : Arora

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The Election Commission of India (ECI) on December 19, 2019, organised a National Workshop on Accessible Elections. The Workshop was organised with the purpose of reviewing steps taken as yet by ECI for making Elections PwD and Senior Citizens friendly and to deliberate on steps still required to make the process more inclusive and accessible.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, in his keynote address, said ” While  disability is a problem that needs to be addressed more by the individual and the family, accessibility is a problem that needs more of institutional remedies.” He  said, “It is our aim to achieve optimum level of awareness and optimum level of interventions on the ground. From Booth Level Officers to ECI, each and every person must work in tandem.  It was in January, 2018, that “Accessible Elections” was decided as the guiding theme for General Elections 2019.

“It is essential that we scale up efforts and interventions in a manner that issues of accessibility are removed altogether and our elections are inclusive in the truest sense,” Arora said. He noted that it is heartening that over that over 90% PWDs have been able to cast their votes in the recently held polling in Jharkhand. “The entire chain of electoral process, E2E  i.e. Enrolment to Elections, needs to be PWD  friendly and accessible and the entire system from BLOs to ECI HQs needs to  work to overcome these issues,” he emphasised, according to a PIB release.

Reaffirming ECI’s commitment, Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa stated that while all efforts made by Chief Electoral Officers & DEOs have made ECI come a long way, yet more needs to be done. “We must learn from around the world, find out what lies ahead, and identify concrete steps that will empower us to make adequate changes,” he said. Suggesting a three pronged strategy, Lavasa said Benchmarking of data, assessing it against parameters of Accessibility Index, making ECI and CEO websites compliant with prescribed guidelines and continuous evaluation would help us  unlock the potential that lies ahead.

Besides Chief Electoral Officers and District Election Officers from various States/UTs, the workshop saw the participation of representatives of Civil Society Organizations, Government Organizations, and NGOs representing different disability sectors.

The Commission also released a booklet ‘Crossing the Barriers – I Got Inked’ on first-person accounts of voters who overcame all hurdles to participate in the largest festival of democracy. A comprehensive document highlighting the work done so far, recent initiatives, and recommendations from all States/UTs and various stakeholders named “Accessibility Report 2019” was made available to participants of the workshop on the occasion.