Volunteers to facilitate PWD and elderly voters at polling stations

Ludhiana, April 5, 2024: For ensuring convenient polling process for persons with disabilities (PWD) and elderly voters above the age of 85 years, district administration has decided to deploy volunteers at the polling stations on the voting day i.e June 1, 2024. Separate queues would also be made for PWD voters and elderly voters above the age of 85 years at polling stations. 

To make sure that different facilities are provided to PWD and elderly voters at ground level, ADC Major Amit Sareen conducted a meeting of District Monitoring Committee on Accessible Elections at Bachat Bhawan on Friday.

Assistant Commissioner Krishna Pal Rajpoot, District Social Security Officer Varinder Singh Tiwana, District Icons for PWD voters including International para-badminton players Ashwani Kumar, his wife Shabana and an international para-table tennis player Shubham Wadhwa, Icon for Transgender community Mohini Mahant among others were present in the meeting.

Working on the direction of District Election Officer (DEO) Sakshi Sawhney, ADC Major Amit Sareen said that all efforts are being made to facilitate the PWD and elderly voters on the polling day. 

As per the data collected by the department, there are 16793 PWD voters in the district. There are 2919 polling stations/booths at total 1410 polling locations. The administration is ensuring that wheel chairs are available at each of the polling stations. The number of wheel chairs would be increased in case there are more PWD voters at any polling station. Wherever required, pick and drop (transportation) facilities would also be provided to the PWD voters. 

Earlier on Friday, district administration officials also conducted a meeting with different NGOs and managements of various hospitals to rope in volunteers.

Representatives of different NGOs including Initiators of Change, Marshal Aid etc participated in the meeting and ensured active participation of their respective volunteers for facilitating the PWD voters at the polling stations.    

ADC Major Sareen said that the aim of district administration is to ensure maximum participation and to achieve the target of more than 70 per cent voter turnout during the during the Lok Sabha-2024 elections. (Iss Baar, 70 Paar). Voter awareness activities are also being conducted across the district and all steps are being taken to facilitate the voters at the polling stations.