Andhra Pradesh - Khammam   

‘Speed up process on EVM tracking system'

Stock-taking:Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal (centre) addressing a review meeting in Khammam on Friday. District Collector Siddharth Jain and Joint Collector M.M. Naik are seen.

KHAMMAM: Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal has asked the district election officials to speed up the process of feeding the entire data of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), including the unique identity number of each machine, into the software of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and complete the whole exercise before June 30.

Mr. Bhanwar Lal reviewed the arrangements for the preparation of photo electoral rolls, a mandatory exercise for publication of the draft electoral rolls on October 1, 2011, at a meeting with the district officials here on Friday.

Underlining the urgency of expediting the process of making available the entire data pertaining to the EVMs online, he said the exercise assumed paramount significance as the comprehensive database would help track the status and movement of the EVMs.

The ECI has accorded top priority to the online EVM tracking system in the aftermath of reported theft of a few EVMs in Krishna district in November last year.

He asked the district election officials to collect the mobile phone number of each voter during their ensuing house-to-house survey in connection with the preparation of the photo electoral rolls.

“The SMS mode of communication is a cheaper and effective,” he said adding that the cellphone numbers of the voters would enable the Election Commission to transmit messages containing relevant information on election guidelines and other necessary details to the voters.

Training programme

Mr. Bhanwar Lal wanted the officials to hold training programmes for the booth level officials for achieving cent per cent photo electoral rolls, rectification of errors and bogus votes, if any, in the Elector's Photo Identity Cards, rationalisation of polling stations among others.

Collector Siddharth Jain said that the EVM tracking report would be prepared in a few days, well ahead of the stipulated time frame. Joint Collector M.M. Naik was present.

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