Karwar: The district administration has come with an online software in order to facilitate officers to locate Persons with Disability (PwD) voters with the help of Google maps and ensure that they vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Using this software, officers can know the number of PwD voters in a particular area, their polling booth number and whether they have voted or not on the day of polling.
The software has been developed by the district administration in association with the National Information Centre (NIC). In the beginning, a survey was conducted using the services of Village Rehabilitation Workers and Multipurpose Rehab Workers to gather the details of the PwD voters present in 1,437 polling booths in the district.
Survey
In the survey, 12,913 PwD voters were identified and their locations were marked on the Google maps through the software.
The houses of all these PwD voters have been circled in green colour on the map. When the officers click on these circles, they can get the details of the residential address of the PwD voters and their polling stations.
In addition to this, these green circles turn into blue when the PwD voters arrive at the polling booth on the day of polling. Village Rehab Workers and Multi-purpose Rehab Workers have already been trained to use this software. The training programme was monitored by District-level Nodal Officer and Zilla Panchayat CEO Mohammed Roshan.
“Already, facility of wheelchairs, braille ballets and magnifying glasses have been made at the polling station for the convenience of physically challenged persons. Zilla Panchayat Chief Planning Officer V M Hegde has been deputed to look after this at the polling stations from the village-level to district-level. District Officer of the Department for Welfare of Physically Challenged persons Ajjappa Sogalad is serving as the member secretary,” said Mohammed Roshan.
Appreciation
Meanwhile, Belagavi Regional Commissioner Tushar Girinath has appreciated the efforts of the Uttara Kannada district administration in developing this software.
Deputy Commissioner K Harishkumar, Zilla Panchayat CEO Mohammed Roshan and other district-level officers attended a meeting recently where they sought information about this technology.