Model poll booths to be set up in Mangaluru

ZP CEO Dr M R Ravi, who is also the SVEEP Committee chairman, said that two model polling booths will be set up at Victoria High School in Ladyhill and Government School at Gandhinagara.

Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, he said that the model polling booth will not have queues where the voters stand to cast their franchise. Instead, the voters will be made to sit in a lounge, having volunteers who will issue a token to go and cast their franchise. A red carpet will be laid in the polling station. The lounge will have seating arrangements, fan, and drinking water facility along with television, in which, all the video clippings of SVEEP Committee activities will be played. It will also have medical facility and play materials for the children, said Dr Ravi.

Five ethnic polling stations will be decked up by artistes designated by the Directorate of Tribal Welfare, who will visit the district in the next coupple of days.

Special facilities

Dr Ravi said that the district has 10,911 differently abled voters, of whom, 5,756 are physically challenged, 829 are visually impaired, 1,006 suffer from hearing loss, and 3,320 suffer from other deformities. The mapping of all these voters has been carried out and 437 polling booths will require 310 wheelchairs. As many as 140 wheelchairs will be procured from the Department of Health and Family Welfare, 60 from private clinics and nursing homes.

Also, 110 wheelchairs have been donated by MRPL under its CSR activities to the Department of Health and Family Welfare. For the visually impaired voters, 452 polling stations will require magnifying glasses, which will be procured by gram panchayats, he said.

Further, he said that, to ferry physically challenged voters – especially endosulfan victims – there is a need for 135 vehicles. The BLOs and PDOs have been directed to identify a vehicle and seek permission with a pass from the returning officer to ferry such voters to the polling station.

Food supply

On the polling staff, he said 11,200 polling staff members will be required for the electoral process. Akshara Dasoha staff have been asked to prepare food for the staff in the school and the fund has been released to the schools.

All the 1,858 polling booths will have a first aid kit, which will be distributed through Department of Health and Family Welfare. There are around 5,000 Booth-level Awareness Group (BAG) members in the district, who will work as facilitators outside the polling stations by helping the senior citizens and physically challenged persons.