In 2015, the number of polling stations in Delhi was increased by the Office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), along with rationalisation of voters for each station.
To ensure no voter is confused about his or her polling station, the CEO’s Office is coming up with a Google map-based “How to reach polling station” application.
Exact location
The state-of-the-art application will not just show voters the exact location of their polling station on a map, but also provide a “street view” of the area, along with an image of the polling station building so that there is no room for ambiguity.
The electoral office had bumped up the number of polling stations in Delhi to 13,144 by adding1,381 new polling booths, while the number of polling locations was increased from 2,530 to 2,620.
Chandra Bhushan Kumar, CEO, Delhi, said polling station optimisation will ensure that all locations are in conformity with standard guidelines of the Election Commission of India, apart from improvement in “access with ease” for electors to their respective polling station by effective use of GIS technology.
“The improved polling station map will help electors reach their polling station using Google map with satellite, street view and key map on how to reach, knowing precise AutoCAD drawing of the polling station with dimensions and model layout,” he said.
Voters will also be able to see actual images of the polling station, along with basic minimum facilities available there.
“We are identifying the latitude and longitude of each polling station through ground work, which will be merged with the map,” Mr. Kumar added.
He said it is already possible to locate polling stations on map, but the idea is to make the process even more user-friendly.
“It is, however, a Herculean task and is not going to be easy, keeping in mind the complexities in urban areas. Availability has to be looked into and it is possible that some locations will have more information than others,” he said.
2019 general elections
While the primary target is to have a completely user-friendly application in place by the 2019 general elections, electoral officials are already moving in that direction and work on the gathering of data for the map will increase once the draft electoral rolls of Delhi are published in September this year.
The mapping of polling stations is one of the key IT-enabled activities under the National Electoral Rolls Purification drive. It includes capturing existing and probable polling station buildings’ coordinates, mapping facilities, etc..
The CEO’s Office is coming up with a Google map-based “How to reach polling station” application
