The Election Commission is gearing up for the world’s largest democratic exercise next year- elections to the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Parliament - with the office of the Chief Electoral Officer here scheduled to conduct a massive training programme from September for the personnel who will be involved in the polling works.
Around 1,000 master trainers would be given hands-on training for four days in 10 places, including Chennai, in four zones of the State.
The 10 officers in the rank of Sub-Collectors, Revenue Divisional Officers and Deputy Collectors, who have received a week’s training on election-related issues in New Delhi recently, would preside over these training programmes.
Training would be provided to these master trainers on all aspects of conducting elections, ranging from the printing of ballot papers, operations of electronic voting machines, law and order, vulnerability mapping, SMS-based monitoring and managing polling stations. Each session would have not more than 50 people and the interactive sessions would have practical modules too.
After the training is over, tests would be conducted on the subjects and those who fail to score at least 50 per cent marks would be required to undergo the training process all over again until they score the necessary marks.
The master trainers would, in turn, train the ground-level personnel who would be engaged in election works like presiding officers, micro observers and others. Each of the subjects would be covered by two to three persons at the district level as well as Assembly constituency level depending upon the nature of the work
Apart from this, training would be provided to various officers in the rank of District Superintendents of Police, returning officers and polling officers for one day each in September.
Already, the Election Commission has commenced the baseline survey on the knowledge, attitude, behaviour and practice of voters in Tamil Nadu. The exercise would cover all the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State.