The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : EPIC coverage around 65 per cent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 19, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

EPIC coverage around 65 per cent

Karthik Subramanian

Exercise to close on April 30

CHENNAI: With just two weeks left for the completion of the current phase of issue of elector's photo identification cards (EPIC), election officials have been able to attain 65 per cent overall coverage in city's 14 Assembly constituencies.

During the start of the exercise in February, Corporation officials said they had determined that around 18 lakh voters in the city did not have valid voter ID cards during last year's intensive electoral roll revision. So far, though, they have been able to issue only around nine lakh new voter ID cards. With the exercise set to wind up on April 30, an higher percentage coverage seems unlikely.

Election officials said the initial estimate of 18 lakh voters might be wrong. "At the time of intensive revision, we had recorded that around 32 per cent voters had valid voter IDs.

But this was only because they did not produce them then. We feel now that at another 10 to 15 percentage of voters had the cards but we could not get them during our verification," an official said.

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