BHUBANESWAR: The Election Commission has approved the state’s proposal to increase total number of booths from 38,000 to around 45,300, ahead of the crucial special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Chief electoral officer (CEO), Odisha, RS Gopalan said a formal notification in this regard will be issued by the EC after announcement of the date for commencement of the SIR exercise in the state. The new polling stations have been added to ensure no booth exceeds a voter limit of 1,200.
Law says the maximum voters in a booth shouldn’t exceed 2,000. In Odisha, the number was anyway below 1,400. However, to streamline the polling process further and reduce long queues during voting, the Commission instructed all states, including Odisha, to reduce the number further to not more than 1,200. Accordingly, polling booths have been split, wherever required, and 7,300 new booths have been created.
The SIR was expected to begin from April 1. However, the exercise has been delayed in the state owing to elections in five states. With the results out, the CEO said it could be announced anytime soon and all preparations are in place for it.
As part of its readiness, the office of the CEO has already conducted three rounds of training for the officials for carrying out the exercise.
The mapping process of 2025 voter roll with that of 2002, as part of the pre-SIR exercise, is also 95 per cent complete, resulting in deletion of around 9.8 lakh names from the voter list.
All vacant posts of booth-level officers, electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) are being filled swiftly. Apart from the BLOs at booth level, the state at present has 719 AEROs and 147 EROs, the officials said.