Booth-level officials in Bandra West are facing difficulties in accessing housing societies
The pilot project in Maharashtra to geo-tag voters with electoral rolls has hit a bump in the Bandra West constituency with booth level officers facing problems in accessing housing societies, which turn away enumerators.
The pilot, which is being implemented in five assembly constituencies, namely Bandra West, Baramati (Pune), Dindori (Nashik), Pathri (Parbhani) and Ralegaon (Yavatmal) will ensure that members of a family can vote in a polling booth closest to them.
The 'online family linking exercise' will check if voters stay within the boundaries of the assembly constituency and ensure that family members are not allocated different polling stations. The geo-referenced data will help redraw assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies during the delimitation exercise.
"Our enumerators are conducting house-to-house surveys to revise the rolls and add and delete names of voters. The details will be filled into a mobile app developed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) instead of manual data entry. The app will geo-tag the location of voters," said a senior state government official.
This, he explained, would help bunch members of a family together in the electoral rolls and do away with complaints of names missing from the voters list.
An official from the Mumbai suburban district collectorate said that though the drive was launched in November, the around 200 block level officers in the Bandra West constituency faced a problem while accessing voters residences.
"Some housing societies deny access to our enumerators on grounds of security when they conduct visits. However, we have approached the deputy registrar of co-operative societies who has instructed them to provide access," he added.
"Since Mumbai is a city with nuclear families and working couples, our enumerators are unable to access them during the day. However, we have started making evening visits to get the data," the official said.
The official said they had covered around 2.25 lakh of the around 2.88 lakh voters. "Though we expected the drive to conclude in a month, work is still on. We will try and cover almost all the electors," he added. Maharashtra has 8.34 crore voters.
Perry road resident Anil Joseph noted that was because the staff was not trained and did not possess identity cards of the commission despite stating that they had come for election-related work. "They should instead say that they are from BMC or some other government body whose identity card they possess and communicate that they are deputed for election work," he added, stating that advertisements should be issued and notices should sent to buildings about the drive.
BETTER VOTING
- The pilot project is being implemented in Bandra West, Baramati (Pune), Dindori (Nashik), Pathri (Parbhani) and Ralegaon (Yavatmal).
- It aims to ensure that members of a family can vote in a polling booth closest to them.
- It will check if voters stay within the boundaries of the assembly constituency.
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