BHUBANESWAR: With door-to-door survey and digitisation of enumeration forms for the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral roll in the state completed, the Election Commission has appointed 10 senior IAS officers as electoral roll observers (EROs) to oversee the revision exercise.
Additional CEO Sushanta Kumar Mishra stated that the appointments have been made by the EC and the EROs concerned will undertake three rounds of field visits during the revision process.
The first visit will be carried out during the period of receipt of claims and objections and notices in one of the districts they are assigned. The second visit will take place during the disposal of claims and objections by the Electoral Registration Officers, while the third will be carried out during verification of the working copy by the booth-level officers (BLOs) and final publication of the electoral roll.
As per the CEO’s office, the observers will not confine their visits to district headquarters and go to polling stations in Assembly constituencies in their jurisdiction for inspection.
They will also convene meetings with sitting MPs, MLAs and representatives of recognised political parties to hear grievances related to the electoral roll revision and encourage their participation in the process. Citizens will also be allowed to meet the observers to submit roll-related grievances.
As per the order, the observers’ tour programmes and contact numbers will be widely publicised in the districts they have been assigned.
The observers will also personally scrutinise reports submitted by district election officers (DEOs) in Assembly constituencies where voter deletions or additions remain more that three per cent of their total electors or exceed one per cent above the district average.
The observers will also submit reports to the CEO on the basis of given checklists following their visits. While the state has around 3.33 crore electors in the pre-SIR rolls, about 99.2 pc enumeration forms were distributed between May 30 and June 28. Around 94 pc of the forms were also also digitised during the period. The claims and objects for SIR will be received and notices will be served after the draft publication of the draft electoral roll on July 5. The final electoral roll will be published on September 6.