After an elaborate study, the National Institute for Employment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) has proposed a set of measures to be adopted for making the process of voting easy and polling booths more accessible to the persons with disabilities. The premier institute has compiled these measures and sent them to the Election Commission ( EC) of India for necessary compliance. The director of the NIEPVD, Nachiketa Raut said that these measures once adopted in all the polling stations of the country would help in the specially abled to vote for the candidate of their choice without any problem. The measures proposed by the institute have also been complied in a form of a set of questions. It advocates adoption of measures like availability of an accessible path leading to polling station, ramps of standard specification, trained staff for helping specially abled, presence of resting place, proper railings and toilets.
Similarly for the hearing impaired the institute has asked for availability of sign language instructor. It has advocated presence of tactile maps, material in Braille, installation of Braille reader, colour contrast in floor and roof of polling stations for visually handicapped. Addressing media persons here on Tuesday, Raut said that the polling station at the institute was developed as model booth for the benefit of the people with disabilities where all these measures were adopted. Raut added that the institute organised a pre -election campaign in and around the campus in which the benefits of casting ones vote were discussed. The head of department of special education and research department, Kamalveer Singh Jaggi gave an elaborate account of the measures taken by the institute for making the polling booth a model one for the specially abled.