An NGO for the visually challenged has requested the West Bengal chief electoral officer to ensure better arrangements in polling booths for blind voters in the Assembly election.

The Calcutta chapter of the National Association for the Blind has written a letter to poll panel chief Sunil Kumar Gupta, asking him for adequate Braille ballots in all booths, as well as ramps to provide easy access for the wheelchair-bound.

Elaborate arrangements had been promised for blind voters ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. But voters had been turned away from many booths, in the absence of adequate infrastructure or lack of information among returning officers.

“According to rough estimates, there are over 10 lakh visually challenged voters in the state,” said Kanchan Gaba, the honorary general secretary of the NGO that wrote the letter on Friday.

Gaba added that there had been a lot of complaints after the Lok Sabha election from blind voters, who said booths did not have any Braille ballots.

Most blind voters, she said, had to depend on another person to direct them about the order of candidates in the EVMs, thus compromising on their right to secret ballot.

“The 2001 census showed that 3.1 per cent of Bengal’s population is physically challenged in some way. Of the physically challenged, 46 per cent are visually handicapped. Yet, there is little thought about them,” said Gaba, who herself had to vote using an EVM without Braille inscriptions.

Poll panel officials promised to set things right in the Assembly polls. “There will be Braille ballots in all booths. The EVMs, too, will have Braille signage,” said Saibal Barman, the state’s deputy chief electoral officer.

The commission is also training returning officers about Braille ballots.

“We are training all returning officers about Braille ballots and asking them to be sensitive towards physically challenged voters,” said joint chief electoral officer Dibyendu Sarkar.

“Though I haven’t seen the letter, I can assure you there won’t be any problem this year,” Sarkar added.

The commission has also promised immediate redress — on poll day itself — if a voter doesn’t find Braille ballots in a booth.

“We will inform the public about some phone numbers, which any voter with a complaint can call,” said Barman. “If a visually challenged voter calls up to say that he has not been able to vote, we will ensure that he does get to vote.”

An official at the poll panel chief’s office, however, felt that there was a need to organise “awareness camps for blind voters, so that they become familiar with Braille ballot papers”.

The official felt that providing adequate ballot papers at all booths might prove to be a problem.

“We have never counted the number of physically challenged people in Bengal who are eligible to vote,” the official said.