A sticker to ensure you enrol as voter

Worried that you might lose an opportunity to enrol yourself in the voters’ list or get the electoral photo identify cards (EPICs) in the special revision exercise which began from Monday?

Relax, the “Know your BLOs” stickers will come to your rescue. The BBMP has decided to paste the stickers on locked doors during the door-to-door visit. The stickers will have a name, address and the mobile phone number of the local booth level officials (BLOs). Residents can call up their area BLOs and fix an appointment for enrolment.

Palike Additional Commissioner (Administration) B F Patil hopes the “Know your BLOs” stickers will help to cover those who do not have fixed office hours and families where both the husband and wife are working professionals.

“A large number of families in the City come under these categories. This is a unique experiment, and we hope it will help improve the coverage of both voters’ list and EPICs,” he added. The Palike has begun a month-long intensive revision of the voters’ list from Monday.

The BBMP, comprising 198 wards, has the least coverage of voters’ list and EPIC –– at about 80 per cent as against the State average of 94 per cent –– compared to any other city in the State, in spite of having 5,828 booth-level offices in its BBMP limits. This has been attributed to the large number of nuclear families where both the husband and wife work at odd hours.

People can also call up the BLOs for making corrections or changes in the voters’ list. Documents pertaining to this can be handed over to the BLO at any convenient time.

The Palike is also planning to rope in resident welfare associations (RWAs) and colleges in the drive. The plan is to designate one of the representatives of an RWA as a BLO and entrust her/him to collect all the details.

Every week, Palike officials will visit the association premises and collect the details.

Similarly, college principals will be asked to coordinate and help the BBMP to enrol students who have crossed 18 years of age. Patil said Assistant Revenue Officers (AROs) have been asked to take appropriate decision on the timings of conducting door-to-door visit to enrol people.

“If people are available in their homes only in the evening hours in a particular locality, AROs can take a decision to conduct the drive in the evening,” he added.