The Hindu : Many voters yet to receive photo identity cards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Many voters yet to receive photo identity cards

By Saptarshi Bhattacharya

Chennai April 2. Many voters who got themselves videographed for Electors' Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) during previous drives are yet to receive their cards while the ongoing drive in the city Assembly constituencies has met with poor response.

The current drive only targets the residual voters in the 14 city constituencies but those who were photographed as far back as 1997 have been left with no clue as to when they would receive their cards.

A complaint was received from a family who lived in a Mylapore area, falling under the Triplicane constituency. The family members were videographed in 1997 but only three of them received their cards. "My mother, my wife and my sister-in-law are yet to receive their cards. In January when a similar programme was on, we went to a designated photography location. They told us that they would not be able to trace the cards now and asked us to come in March", said R. Ramesh. The family is yet to get a proper answer from the field level officials who manned the photography locations during the drives.

However, the Election department officials clarified that the Election Commission of India was planning a fresh drive exclusively for those who got themselves photographed or videographed during earlier drives and had not received their cards.

Many of the cards generated by the agency which held the contract for the programme, were lost after termination of the contract, officials said.

During the fresh drive, the date for which was yet to be finalised, the officials would trace out the card number of all videographed voters from the old database and generate a fresh card using the same number, they added.

Meanwhile, the distribution of cards from the drive carried out between November 22, 2002 and January 31, 2003 faced a rough weather when members of the official agency, Computer Maintenance Corporation, were prevented from distribution of cards in Kasimedu area by local political henchmen.

The distribution would be taken up after the current drive was over, election officials said.

Meanwhile, the current online programme targeted over 14 lakh residual voters in the city constituencies but the response of voters at the end of the exercise in 12 of the 14 Assembly segments was poor.

A little less than 73,000 voters were covered during the ongoing drive in the 12 constituencies, leaving aside Mylapore and Saidapet where at least two lakh residual voters resided.

Election officials said the residual voters were sent intimation through individual letters to their residences, but the turnout was still low.

Even the political parties, which could have made a difference had they taken up issue, were silent.

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Many voters yet to receive photo identity cards