Facilities for diffabled voters at RK Nagar booths not satisfactory: Associations

Smitha Sadasivan, member of Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), who was part of the team that conducted the audit with a group of persons with disabilities, said most of these booths were not accessible to all.

“Many of the booths don’t have ramps. While some have ramps, they built without planning and don’t meet the required standards.

The ramps at some of the booths are so steep, and they are completely unusable and dangerous,” Smitha said.

“The Civil Engineer (CE) and Zonal officer both promised to rectify all the issues within two days, and the CE will come with us during the next audit which is the final audit to inspect whether the booths are accessible to the diffabled persons,” she stated, adding that the Assistant Engineer of each division had accompanied them for the audit.

Stating that a 27-year-old disabled person P Saravanan of the December 3 Movement fell down while trying to access a booth, she said and added, “These structures built without planning pose a huge threat to the safety of diffabled persons.” “The ramps should be 45 degrees so that a differently abled person can go to the booth on his own. We requested the CE to ensure that changes are made to the ramp and also for the signage to be in braille. If the ramps are made accessible, the disabled persons would not require the help of their escorts,” said Saravanan.

It may be recalled that in a bid to encourage more people with disabilities to exercise their electoral right, the various associations for persons with disabilities started working along with the Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu to make the booths accessible.

“While we are urging for the ramps to be installed according to the standards, we have also put forth a request for the ramps to be installed permanently as it will help not only the disabled, but also pregnant women and little children. Making these ramps at the booths – which are mostly in schools – permanent, will benefit a lot of people,” added Smitha.