Central Braille Press prints dummy ballot sheets for visually impaired

Central Braille Press, at NIVH, Dehradun 

Dehradun, April 16 - The Central Braille Press at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) is printing dummy ballot sheets for visually impaired voters. These sheets would help them locate candidates, their party symbol and position on EVMs for the May 7 Lok Sabha polls in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

These dummy ballot sheets will be dispatched to the polling booths in both states for the ready reference of the visually impaired voters.

The NIVH has also asked to print such dummy ballot sheets for the visually impaired voters of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana.

“We have been empanelled by the Election Commission of India for printing dummy ballot sheets in Braille for the states of Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Nearly 27,000 dummy ballot sheets in Braille were transported to Haryana before it went to the polls on April 10,” said Anuradha Mohit, Director, NIVH.

For the 40 parliamentary constituencies in Bihar, nearly 80,000 dummy ballot sheets would be printed and for the 80 parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, 1.60 lakh ballot sheets would be printed. The ballot sheets are being printed on 140 GSM paper in Braille 650 S-W printing press procured from Norway.

The printing press is able to print 1,000 pages per hour and for the visually impaired voters of Uttarakhand, the requirement is of 7,500 dummy ballot sheets.

The NIVH has also been entrusted with the responsibility of providing numeric stickers. “In certain booths, EVMs made before 2006 are still in use. The pre-2006 EVMs did not contain numeric listing in braille, so stickers are also being printed that would be pasted on them. These were required for the polls in Haryana,” said Lokesh Nawani, in charge, braille, NIVH.