April 5, 2019
In a major push to the accessible election exercise, the Chief
Electoral Officer, Maharashtra has announced a series of measures to
enable disabled and elderly voters to exercise their franchise in a
hassle-free manner. This is being done with NGO V Citizens Action
Network (VCAN), the CSO partner in this exercise.
Since the 2004 assembly elections in Maharashtra, accessibility has been an
aspect of every election held in Mumbai city, but the efforts were piecemeal
and led by civil society organizations. “This is the first time that it is
being pushed so actively”, says disability rights activist Nilesh
Singit, who is the Maharashtra icon for the EC’s accessible
election campaign.
It was Singit who way back in 2004 filed a PIL in the Bombay High
Court asking for all polling stations in Maharashtra to be made
disabled-friendly. This was after late disability rights advocate
Javed Abidi filed a petition in the Supreme
Court seeking the same for polling stations across India.
After Singit’s petition, the High Court intervened saying that unless steps
were taken to make the elections accessible, they would have to be postponed.
For the first time in this general election, a pick up and drop off facility
for voters has been introduced, which is being enabled by the app launched by
the EC specifically for people with disabilities. This service is being
provided by Ezy Mov Solutions Pvt Ltd, a wheelchair taxi
service.
People with disabilities who have registered on the app will be mapped as per
their polling stations, says Indrani Malkani, of VCAN.
Those voters who have registered themselves as disabled have been mapped so
the vehicles can transport them from home to the polling station and back.
This is for Mumbai City district as we have a limited number of Ezy Mov
vehicles. If we can divert some vehicles, they will be deployed in the
suburbs. This will depend on the logistics. – Indrani Malkani,
Chairperson, V Citizens Action Network
One of the key challenges to the mapping exercise is that not all voters who
are disabled have marked themselves as such. “This makes the mapping hard
as we need to know where they are, so it becomes important to propagate that
they should mark themselves as disabled in the PwD app”, says Malkani.
Those without access to the app can mark themselves so on paper.
Ezy Mov, which has a presence in Mumbai and Goa, stepped into the picture
after reading about the accessible elections exercise. “Since we have
vehicles that are wheelchair accessible, we thought of offering our services
and approached VCAN”, says Bennet D’cunha, co-founder,
Ezy Mov Solutions Private Ltd..
Ezy Mov is offering 14 vehicles from its fleet for voting day from on 29
April from 7 AM to 6 PM. “These will run within Mumbai city limits, and we
are looking at pooling, so more people are catered to”, says D’cunha.
Ezy Mov has also set up a dedicated helpline number to answer
all questions related to accessible transport. This is a free service and and
interested voters can call here – 022-49766573.
Once the voters reach the polling station, they will be met with by two Booth
Level Officers (BLO) dedicated to helping people with disabilities. “They
will be taken charge of by the BLOs at the polling station and there will be
volunteers from the NSS and Scouts helping out as well”, says Malkani.
The EC is imparting special training to all the polling staff on how to help
people according to their specific needs. Each district has a welfare officer
as well who will overlook these facilities to ensure the BLOs and volunteers
are doing their job.
This is the first time such a comprehensive exercise has been undertaken and
the learnings here will be useful to make them more seamless and hassle-free
in the future.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21868
