BHUBANESWAR: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls kicked off in the state on Saturday with over 45,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) carrying out door-to-door drive across all districts to distribute enumeration forms.
The office of chief electoral officer (CEO) RS Gopalan said the exercise remained smooth with over 2.5 lakh enumeration forms being distributed by the BLOs physically among the electors.
“A little over 2.59 lakh forms were distributed by the BLOs till 7 pm on the first day of the house-to-house survey. The entire process is being monitored online and we are hopeful of completing the task smoothly ahead of the deadline of June 28,” deputy CEO Laxmi Prasad Sahu said. Sahu said in view of the prevailing heatwave conditions, special safety guidelines have been issued for BLOs. They have been directed to conduct field work only between 6 am and 11 am and from 4 pm to 7 pm, while avoiding outdoor work between 12 noon and 3 pm.
The CEO office has also asked SPs and electoral registration officers (EROs) of all districts to ensure immediate security support for BLOs in case of any untoward incidents during duty.
Officials said all 3.34 crore voters will be covered in the drive. Around 94.61 per cent of them have already been mapped in the pre-SIR exercise, while those who couldn’t be mapped can also be included after submission of required information during the ongoing revision process.
After completion of the drive, the draft electoral roll will be published on July 5. Claims and objections will be received between July 5 and August 4 and disposed of by September 2. The final electoral roll will be published on September 6. The drive is expected to help create a more comprehensive and error-free electoral roll across the state, officials said.