KOLLAM: On April 23, when voting gets under way in the state, the Chief Electoral Officer and District Election Officers will be glued to their computer screens for signs of electoral malpractice if any. They will mainly focus on the sensitive polling booths - the EC puts their number at over 4,000 - which will be monitored from different locations through live webcast.
Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), which is coordinating the live webcast along with Keltron, BSNL, Akshaya and KSEB, will provide live feed from 3,622 polling booths identified as critical and sensitive across 14 districts.
“We will start the webcast from 5 am on April 23 and continue it till voting concludes,” said Sreeraj P Nair, one of the KSITM coordinators.
The poll panel’s eagle eye will be mainly on politically sensitive Kannur where 1,841 out of the total 1,857 polling booths have been provided with webcast. Kozhikode with 937 booths is in second place.
Around 162 locations in Wayanad, Palakkad, Kannur, Malappuram and Kozhikode have been identified as Left-wing extremism(LWE)-hit. Most of the sensitive booths are located in the rural locations where ensuring internet and power connectivity for webcast poses a major challenge. In places with no internet connectivity, the services of private operators have been sought.But it is the weather which the officers dread the most.
“Lightning can play spoilsport as it can disrupt power supply and internet connectivity,” said Sreeraj. Based on the experience in the 2014 LS and 2016 Assembly polls, KSITM has put in place a mechanism to restore connectivity in the event of an outage. KSEB and BSNL officers will coordinate in the restoration process. KSEB was directed to keep generators ready and Akshaya workers have been asked to carry laptops with a backup of at least two hours.
The webcast team is busy testing the facility and live testing of all booths will be carried out on April 22. State- level control rooms have been set up in the CEO’s office and at the KSITM head office. The district-level control rooms are functioning at the collectorates where a dedicated officer from the district administration will monitor the feed.