An awareness meeting was organised by PUNARBASA in its office premises at Madhapur, Kendrapara on Dt- 25.04.2024 on the important topic of discussion “Accessible Elections and Democratic Inclusion of PwDs in the General Election 2024”.

In this awareness meeting where participants from different sections of PwDs including Physically challenged, visually challenged, intellectually challenged persons associated with PwD activities, young voters, Senior Citizens, social workers, Educationalist and representative of district administration of Kendrapara were present and put forth their views and expectations for an inclusive election. Former Principal of Kendrapara Autonomous college Prof. Nanda Kishore Parida, District Social Security Officer Sri Pravash Chandra Das, Sub divisional Social Security Officer Smt. Rupali Priyadarshini expressed their valuable views for accessible election. Chief Advisor of the Organisation Dr. Biraja Routray spoke various programmes of the Government for the differently abled, such as accessible roads, braille ballots, recruitment of volunteers, use of SAM App and 12D Forms for ensuring maximum participation of differently abled voters in these elections. Representative of Special school discussed the system of taking votes through postal ballots at the home of the PwDs parents of disabled people from different categories and expressed their opinions regarding the various obstacles and problems faced by the disabled during the polling. On this occasion Principal of Special school Sri Swapnanshu Kumar Das emphasized on wide awareness of accessible election among the people PwD Government teacher Manoranjan Tripathy said to consider their needs during election work, visually impaired teacher Arun Kumar Behera focusing on simplification in Braille system. Para Athlete discussed proper construction of ramp, district Coordinator of NYK (Nehru Youth Kendra) visually impaired Sri Golli Tirupathi Reddy requested for appointment of a reader for the visually impaired as all VI persons aren’t learn Braille.

Among other speakers Sri Braja Sundar Das representative of Redcross Niranjan Mangraj former Principal of Chandol college, Asst. Secretary Bansidhara Mohanty, Khirod Kumar Kar, Amrin Sahadat discussed about the proper implementation of major yojna, Hundred percent voting, Disability help centric. This meeting was collaborating managed by Sanjib Kumar Jena, Jyotiranjan Nayak, Manoj Kumar Mohanty, Seshadev Prasad Das, Mihir Ranjan Barik and Ranjan Kumar Swain.