4,780 citizens receive accurate EPIC cards

The area voter mitras have been trained by the Bangalore-based NGO, Janaagraha, and the booth-level officers.

This is the result of the first phase of Janaagraha’s BEST (Bangalore Electoral Systems Transformation) campaign, implemented at the Shanthinagar Assembly constituency - as part of the pilot project undertaken by the NGO and the Election Commission of India (ECI). The project is an initiative to clean up the electoral list and bring in cent per cent accuracy.

Over the next few weeks, more than 28,000 new EPICs will be distributed ward-wise comprising of new additions, corrections and transpositions in the Shanthinagar Assembly constituency.

Of the 28,000 EPICs, total 4,780 EPICs will be distributed in Domlur ward in the next few days. Most of the cardholders had voter IDs, with errors either with the name, age or address, which were rectified. The AVM’s ensured that all the details in the EPIC card were given accurate and were handed over to the respective citizens.

A small step
Speaking on the occasion, Maj Gen (Retd) K R Prasad, co-ordinator of Jaagte Raho campaign said it may be a small step, but it is a definitely a giant leap in the cleaning up of electoral rolls.

“Election Commissions of other countries visit India to see how we manage the largest democracy of the world. It is a matter of pride to be a part of such a campaign,” he added.

The BEST campaign was launched on July 23, last year, when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Janaagraha and the Election Commission of India (ECI), to clean up the voters’ list of Shanthinagar constituency as a pilot project.
During the first part of the first phase, Janaagraha trained and mobilised 851 AVMs from each lane of the constituency, representing all the 186 polling booths.

The identified AVMs visited each household in the Shanthinagar constituency and submitted about 44,128 applications to the ECI through Janaagraha.

Out of 44,128 applications, 20,491 applications were for the addition, 10,373 applications were for deletion, 8,820 applications were for corrections and 4,534 applications were for transpositions - people who have shifted within the constituency.