Vehicles transporting reserve EVM's, VVPATs to have GPS trackers: Official

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed officials to use vehicles installed with GPS trackers and mobile-based tracking system for transportation of reserve EVMs and VVPATs, an official said.

With this, the movement of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) could be tracked, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Ariz Aftab, said Friday.

The poll panel has instructed that end-to-end movement of all reserve EVMs and VVPATs shall be carefully monitored at all times, for which vehicles of sector officers, with reserve EVMs and VVPATs, shall be fitted with GPS tracking system.

This is mandatory and real-time monitoring will be carried out, Aftab told reporters here.

For this, an EVM control room shall be set up at the CEO's office and the DEO offices where movement of EVMs and VVPATs would be monitored through GPS monitors and other related I-T infrastructure and applications, the he said, adding the ECI has also launched an EVM Management System.

In West Bengal, the number of polling stations with voice and internet shadow zones are 159 and 1,019 respectively.

"Efforts are underway to reduce the number of polling stations falling under the shadow zone," the CEO said.