Govt has not made poll arrangements for disable voters: Salve

Right activist Shanker Salve, who won a landmark case in the Supreme Court, for a mandatory easy access to election booths in order to enable the disabled to cast their votes, is disheartened with the manner in which the state government has gone ahead making arrangements for the handicaps.

Right activist Shanker Salve, who won a landmark case in the Supreme Court, for a mandatory easy access to election booths in order to enable the disabled to cast their votes, is disheartened with the manner in which the state government has gone ahead making arrangements for the handicaps.

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According to the Supreme Court order in October 2007, every election booth with at least five handicap voters in the constituency is liable to have a wheel-chair ramp and Braille stickers on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

However, activists claim many voting booths across the city is yet to implement the SC order.

"We surveyed many voting booths and found that a weak wooden plank has been installed in the name of a ramp. It is not safe for handicapped persons to climb on the wobbling wooden plank," Shanker Salve, one of the petitioners in the SC told PTI.

Salve, a physically handicapped activist who runs the Apang Vikas Manch alleges that although funds are allocated to set up ramps in every booth, the money is being siphoned off.

"A ramp of specified norm has to be installed in every booth. But the officers flout the norm," Salve said.