Poll panel initiates rationalisation of polling booths

Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (OCEO), Karnataka, has initiated steps to rationalise polling stations and their voter lists across all Assembly constituencies in the State.

The OCEO has been fixing proper boundaries for all polling stations using Geographic Information System (GIS) maps.

The boundaries are being fixed based on definite geographical landmarks like roads and drains of a particular locality and voter lists is being prepared accordingly.

The rationalistion will make it easier for citizens to locate their polling stations and verify details in the voters’ list, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) C S Suranjan said.

The rationalisation work has been completed in all the 28 Assembly constituencies of Bangalore Urban district. It is currently on in 18 constituencies – two each in Gulbarga, Davangere, Dharwad, and Bellary districts and four each in Dakshina Kannada and Mysore districts.

The plan is to cover all 224 constituencies by the end of January, 2013.
Once done, the OCEO is planning to superimpose the polling stations on GIS maps and upload them on its website (ceokarnataka.kar.nic.in). GIS maps of polling stations of Assembly constituencies of Bangalore Urban district will be uploaded in a few days.

A pilot project

The OCEO had implemented the project on a pilot basis in Shantinagar Assembly constituency a couple of months ago, he added.

Currently, polling stations are in disarray in many Assembly constituencies. They do not have fixed boundary. Polling stations are not tallying with voters’ list, leading to a lot of confusion among people. This has been one of the major complaints from citizens during every election.

Postponed

The special revision of the electoral rolls in Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits has been postponed to November 5 due to some technical problem in publishing the draft rolls on October 30.
Now the draft will be published on November 5 and the enrolment of new voters will also commence the same day. The enrolment exercise will be conducted for one month and the final electoral rolls for BBMP will be published on January 16, the CEO said.
For constituencies outside BBMP limits, the process has already commenced and the final electoral rolls will be published on January 5, 2013.
DH News Service