Chandigarh: CEC Sunil Arora bats for innovative ways to ensure delivery of quality electoral services to stakeholders

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora has stressed the need for adopting innovative ways to ensure delivery of quality electoral services to the stakeholders.

Arora, who chaired the meeting to review the work done by Booth Level Officers (BLO) during the last summary revision, said that innovative ways of thinking should be adopted to ensure delivery of quality electoral services to the stakeholders.

According to an official statement, he said in the meeting that Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities and proper strategy should be evolved for different strata of society to improve their participation.

He also commented that the objectives of EVP shall be fully achieved before the draft publication 2020 and the summary revision 2020 shall result in a healthy and all-inclusive electoral roll."

"The CEC also directed that working group on electoral rolls shall study in detail and recommend ease in the procedure of electoral services including enrolment," said the statement.

The Chief Election Commissioner said that a study group of field officials and technical representatives of research institutions such as IITs may be deputed to study the present system in leading democracies such as the US, Canada, and the UK. It was also decided to send a team of officials from Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh to Canada for this purpose.

The statement further said: "It was suggested that digitization of all forms and BLO verification report can be done at CSC level. It was also informed that the availability of BLOs from the working Government or Semi-Government pool of officials is diminishing and at the same remuneration retired Government officials having experience can give full-time service and can serve even more than one polling station."

Those present in the meeting included Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Dr Sandeep Saxena, Director, ECI, A Mona Sreenivas, CEO, Haryana, Anurag Agarwal, CEO, Chandigarh, Ajoy Kumar Sinha, CEO, Punjab, Dr S Karuna Raju, CEO, Himachal Pradesh, Devesh Kumar and other election officers of Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.