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By Nadira Gunatilleke

The Social Welfare Ministry is to make necessary arrangements to ensure the voting rights of the blind population in Sri Lanka. Arrangements will also be made to provide special road crossing facilities and access to public buildings for the visually handicapped people, Social Welfare Ministry Secretary Mrs.Vijayalakshmi Jegarasasingam told the Daily News yesterday.

Mrs. Jegarasasingam said the Ministry decided to expedite these arrangements after the matters cropped up at a meeting at the National Council on Persons with Disabilities held at the Ministry recently. According to the present situation, blind people have to obtain the assistance of an elections officer to cast their vote during polling. But most of the blind are not satisfied with this procedure as they cannot check whether the vote has been cast according to their choice by the officer concerned.

A vital discussion will be held soon among Social Welfare Minister Ravindra Samaraweera, the Elections Commissioner and all political party leaders to discuss this matter. During this discussion the possibility of amending the present election law to allow blind voters to be accompanied by a person of their choice to exercise the vote on their behalf will be seriously considered.

At present the signal lights put up on the roads are not recognisable by the blind. They cannot use these colour lights to cross the roads. A signal light system that can be operated by the blind has been put up only at Seeduwa at present. Road Development Authority (RDA) representatives have promised to look into this matter and pursue steps to set up similar traffic signals at key points in the city such as Slave Island.

Arrangements will also be made to provide easy access facilities to public buildings for the blind. As the first stage an audio signal system will be set up in the lifts located at Sethsiripaya where the Social Welfare Ministry is housed. The matter was discussed with the Urban Development Authority (UDA) representative who was present at the meeting.

A cabinet paper has already been submitted in calling for the amendment of the relevant act in order to make it compulsory to provide easy access facilities to the blind in public buildings.

Providing legal aid to the disabled who are victims of abuse was also discussed as one of the priorities since disabled children and youths are one of the most vulnerable segments to abuse.

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