Patiala, April 22 – District Election Officer Shaukat Ahmed Pare presided over the District Monitoring Committee on Accessible Elections (DMCAE) meeting today to ensure active and constructive participation of disabled and elderly voters in Patiala district during Lok Sabha Elections 2024. It should be ensured that every elderly person above 85 years of age and more than 40 percent of disabled persons should be reached through BLOs and Anganwadi workers and those elderly and disabled voters who want to vote from home should be provided with Form No. 12D. to be conducted
The District Election Officer said that there are 13 thousand 79 voters above 85 years of age in Patiala district, out of which 5082 are male voters and 7997 are female voters. He said that access is being made to these voters and those voters who want to vote from home are filling Form No. 12D. He said that there are 15120 disabled voters in the district, including 9104 male and 6016 female voters, who should be made aware about the Shaksam app so that they can register themselves. Shaukat Ahmed Pare said that in order to make elections accessible to all, PWD voters will be provided with wheel chairs, ramps at all polling stations, Braille ballot sheet facilities, queues for casting separate votes, booth volunteers and picks at all polling stations in the district. End drop transport facility will also be provided and a special helpline number will also be issued for this. He said that the committee will also conduct a training session with BLOs, polling officers, booth volunteers, agents of political parties and police force to create awareness about PWD voters. A special awareness campaign is also being conducted on different platforms to make the differently abled aware with the support of organizations working for the betterment of persons with special needs in the district. Additional District Election Officer Madam Kanchan, District Social Security Officer-cum-District Nodal Officer (PWD Voter) Varinder Singh Bains, Assistant Director Youth Services Dr. Dilbar Singh, Election Tehsildar Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, District Nodal Officer Sweep Prof. Savinder Rekhi, Colonel Karminder Singh, DDF Nidhi Malhotra, district icon Jagwinder Singh and various social service organizations and heads of various departments were present.