Strict compliance of norms to make polling disabled friendly: Election Commission

The Election Commission is working to ensure that the election procedure is completely disabled friendly and has made ramps and braille-enabled EVMs compulsory at polling booths.

"If cases of non-compliance are reported, we will take strong action," chief election commissioner SY Quraishi said today after giving away awards to a group of individuals and corporates, including Wipro and Yahoo India, for their efforts to make the world more accessible for differently-abled people.

The 'Universal Design' awards instituted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and Mphasis were conferred to three persons with disabilities and three working professionals, besides four organisations.

Among the awardees are ITC Royal Gardenia, Bengaluru, designed with emphasis on accessibility and Universal Design, and the Indian chapter of Sightsavers, which specialises in providing technical and financial support for the prevention and cure of blindness. Its Dolphin Pen is a revolutionary low-cost, pen drive with a screen reader and magnifier.

Wipro Ltd was chosen for providing an inclusive environment and for revamping its facilities and information systems to incorporate accessibility needs of employees, while Yahoo India Research & Development was awarded for its commitment to make all its products accessible.

Among the individual awardees were IIT Roorkee associate professor Gaurav Raheja, Ferinand Rodricks, CEO of an authorised automobile workshop, MS Raju, founder of Vision Aid Charitable Society for training blind in use of computers, besides Imtiyaz Ahmed Kachvi from Karnataka, Sam Taraporevala and Sunita I Sancheti from Mumbai.

Quraishi, who along with minister of state Sachin Pilot gave away the awards, rued the fact that a large section of the people in the country were unsympathetic towards the needs of persons with disabilities.

He also said the state of Corporate Social Responsibility in India was dismal.

"India has a bulk of billionaires but they have a mere token involvement in CSR, which is very disappointing. More than money, what is important is the sincerity to do something. Companies can help by putting R&D inputs to make technology accessible to differently-abled persons," he said.

Pilot said that there was a need to sensitise citizens to the lives of the differently-abled persons.

"I will take the first step to ensure that my ministry is completely friendly to differently abled persons, be it the websites or any other thing," Pilot said.

NCPEDP executive director Javed Abidi said accessibility is mostly referred to as a physical phenomenon in India and the concept needs to be widened to include accessability for the blind and the hearing impared as well.

"99.9% of our websites are not accessible to the blind people as they are not fitted with the audio reading software, our television channels are also not accompanied by audio aid for the hearing impaired. So this is not only about building ramps for the physically disabled but about changing the environment for all of them," he said.