Error-free electoral roll: State CEO office begins using new software
Kolkata: The state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office has started using a new software with the primary objective of making the electoral roll error-free, ensuring that no deceased, shifted, fake or non-existent voters remain on the list. The Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) have been given access to use this new software ‘Demographic Similar Entries’ for identifying bogus voters within seconds.
State CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal said that the initiative has been taken to simplify and speed up the Commission’s verification process. Each ERO will only be able to view the suspicious voter records within their respective jurisdictions. Within the next two days, all district District Election Officers (DEO) will also be given access to the software for monitoring suspicious entries across the entire district. The state CEO’s office will have visibility across the state while the Election Commission of India will have access at the national level.
The move assumes significance with the state having already completed 99.95 per cent distribution of enumeration forms and digitization of 98.84 per cent of them. As per data of the CEO office nearly 53 lakh forms have remained ‘uncollected’ out of which over 23.48 lakh has been identified as ‘dead’.
Over 18.44 lakh voters have shifted address while 9.42 lakh electors have remained untraced. Over 1.22 lakh voters have been identified as duplicate or bogus. The state CEO on Thursday delivered a message to all the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) who have been assigned the SIR task to ensure that “no eligible voter is left out and no ineligible voter is included in the electoral roll”.
The CEO’s message states that with the poll panel pushing back the date of completion of distribution and digitisation of enumeration forms from December 4 to December 11, the BLOs should review their exercise once again and ensure that no deliberate mistake has been committed. The roll back App has already been initiated and will be effective till December 11 and so there will be scope for rectification during this period. The message further states that since the BLOs are in deputation with the Commission for carrying out SIR of electoral rolls and the responsibility of verification rests on them any deliberate mistake on the part of the BLOs will attract legal action.
“The preparation of a transparent electoral roll should be ensured and all duplicate / dead/ shifted / absentee voters should be weeded out of the rolls,” an EC official said.
Presently, there are 7 polling booths in the state from where not a single ‘uncollectable’ form has been reported. Interestingly, 2,208 polling booths were recorded with 100 per cent distribution, collection and digitisation of SIR forms on Monday, following which the CEO office had sought signed reports from EROs, countersigned by DEOs by 10 am on Tuesday.
Malda has 2 such booths, while Jalpaiguri, South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Purulia and West Midnapore each have a single such booth. Mpost
