EC groups submit recommendations on reforms, electoral rolls

Nine working groups of Election Commission officials and over 20 chief electoral officers on Tuesday submitted their recommendations to the panel on various issues, including the model code, electoral rolls and the expenditure management based on learnings from the last Lok Sabha polls and other recent elections.

At a two-day conference where the recommendations were submitted, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said the poll panel will look into the recommendations of the working groups and put them up in the public domain for getting views of stakeholders, an official statement said.

Addressing the officers, Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa urged them to make implementable recommendations.

He said "while submitting their reports to the commission, the groups should draw short term, medium-term and long term categorised actions for suggesting procedural or rule or law amending requirements".

Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said while the working groups have laboured to identify the existing gaps and way forward in electoral processes, CEOs should take due help of technology to streamline procedures for future.

The commission had formed nine working groups of CEOs and Commission officers covering various facets of election process including electoral rolls, polling stations management, model code of conduct, voting processes and material inventory, capacity building, IT applications, expenditure management and electoral reforms.